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Researcher Kinanya Pijl of the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law (UCALL) has been nominated for the award for Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ's best Master's Thesis 2014-2015. From a total of 20 candidates who had been selected by the various faculties, 3 candidates have been nominated for this prestigious award. The winner of the award will be announced during the ceremonial on 31 August 2015.

Thesis about ICANN's responsibilities regarding human rights

Kinanya's Master's thesis deals with the responsibilities of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) where it comes to respecting the human rights of third parties. ICANN is an international private organisation with an important (semi-)public role: managing the internet's infrastructure in the public interest. This role includes the exclusive competence to assign internet domain names on a global scale.

In her study, Kinanya demonstrates that there is a clear and pressing need for the development of effective safeguards to guarantee the human rights compliance of ICANN and to prevent abuse of power within the organisation. She provides a number of proposals to this effect. For more information, see the .

Researcher at Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law

Kinanya, who is currently working as a researcher for the , has written her Master Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Tina van der Linden-Smith. In September 2015, she will join the European ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ Institute in Florence, where she will work on a doctoral research project within the field of Business & Human Rights.