MRG pays tribute to Professor Françoise Hampson

It is with a profound sense of loss that MRG pays tribute to Professor Françoise Hampson who died on Friday, the 18th of April 2025. Françoise is well known as an intellectual giant in the world of international law, and her students and academic colleagues at the University of Essex Law School and abroad will no doubt sorely miss her.

We at MRG want to testify to her tremendous contribution when serving on our governing Council for six years. We benefited from the deep knowledge, skills and vision that Françoise had for a just, peaceful and sustainable society. Her time with us has made a significant and lasting contribution not only to our legal strategy and litigation work which she helped articulate, but to the overall efficacy of our organization in the protection of minority and indigenous rights.

Françoise was gentle but firm in her conviction that human rights should not become a two-tier concern – where only the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples in countries that were democracies were worked on. Her arrival at every one of our Council meetings, armed with a sheaf of papers, all annotated in pencil, showed her meticulousness to detail and how she could channel her professional commitment and passion for human rights through the shaping of strategy and policy.

Speaking at news of her loss, Claire Thomas, MRG’s Executive Director stated, ‘Like her contributions elsewhere Françoise’ influence on MRG will outlast her time with us. Her compassion for the rights of the marginalised was unshakeable and the way in which she engaged with our Council members, staff, and minority and indigenous communities will never be forgotten’.