Profile: Michiel Pestman

by Stan Starygin

Michiel Pestman has been involved in several high-profile cases over the last decade. He represented two journalists in a landmark case adjudicated by a Hague court in which, for the first time in recent Dutch practice, injunctive relief was granted to a plaintiff by a Dutch court against actions of the intelligence service. Mr. Pestman served as counsel for defense on a Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)case Prosecutor v Fofana, which dealt with the issue of child military recruitment and which included a panoply of issues of the application of international human rights instruments and customary international law to domestic jurisdictions.
Most recently Mr. Pestman has been involved in the defense of a Filipino revolutionary leader Professor Jose Maria Sison who stands accused of murder. As the latter is currently being appealed before the Netherlands Appeals Court, and Mr. Pestman will be expected to assume his duties at the ECCC shortly, it is at this point not clear how the two of these commitments will be reconciled.