Our team

Mr. Elsa van de Loo is an attorney at PILP. She provides legal advice to allies, acts as a lawyer in various proceedings, and plays an important role in drafting legal documents and doing additional legal research.

Van de Loo is an expert on human rights, equal treatment and non-discrimination. She previously worked as an independent social lawyer assisting individuals in cases involving tenancy law, education law and fundamental rights. Before that, she was, among other things, a lawyer and policy advisor at the Human Rights Board.

In addition to her role as a lawyer, Ms. Van de Loo is a deputy member of the Human Rights Board where she is part of the judicial role of the Board. She is also a member of the Childcare Allowance Objections Advisory Committee and provides training courses on diversity and inclusion.

mr. Erykah Sackey is temporarily working as a lawyer at PILP, seconded from Houthoff. Within PILP, Erykah is working on various cases, including right to protest and anti-discrimination cases.

At Houthoff, Erykah mainly deals with litigation and advice in the field of real estate. She also advises on cases at the intersection of (economic) public and private law and on corporate governance issues.

Farah Ennali, a political scientist and anthropologist, is an administrative assistant at PILP. In this role, she provides support for all of PILP’s internal and external communications and event planning. She also deals with organizational and administrative tasks.

In addition to her work for PILP, Farah is active at several museums, gives workshops on socio-political topics and is working with others on a project about the experiences of first generation Moroccan women in the Netherlands.

mr. Jelle Klaas is executive director and human rights lawyer at PILP. He is one of the founders of PILP and has years of experience in strategic litigation for human rights in the Netherlands.

Mr. Klaas provides legal advice to clients and allies, acts as an advocate in various proceedings and is partly responsible for PILP’s spokesmanship and external representation.

Within PILP, Mr. Klaas specializes particularly in civil procedural law, demonstration law, housing policy, anti-discrimination cases and strategic litigation in general.

Mr. Klaas previously worked for 15 years as a social lawyer for the Fischer Group, where, among other things, he collaborated on proceedings concerning the right to “bed, bath and bread” for undocumented persons.

Ms. Laura Wennekes is operational director at PILP. In this role she is responsible for external relations, fundraising and the general operations of PILP. She also identifies and coordinates (new) projects and events that fit PILP’s procedures.

Prior to joining PILP, Laura worked at Allen&Overy, Natuurmonumenten and !Woon Foundation. She also completed a legal master’s degree in international security at the Free University of Amsterdam.

Besides her work, Laura is active as treasurer at Progressief Woerden.

Mr. Merel Hendrickx is a lawyer at PILP. She provides legal advice to allies, acts as a lawyer in various strategic procedures.

Within PILP Merel specializes in collective and public interest actions, demonstration law, children’s right to water, (ethnic) profiling and anti-discrimination. Before she started at PILP, Merel was, among other things, involved as a trainee in the appeal in the Urgenda case against the State.

Michel Dwumah works as communications & fundraising officer at PILP.

Mr. Micky Kusters is a legal assistant at PILP. She supports PILP’s lawyers in their cases by, among other things, drafting legal documents and doing legal research.

Micky completed the LLB Law, BA Philosophy and LLM Public International Law cum laude at the University of Amsterdam. During her studies, Micky served as the president of a student association, completed two student assistantships and conducted research for Professor Yvonne Donders in her role as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. She has also engaged in human rights legal research as an intern at PILP and Prakken d’Oliveira Human Rights Lawyers.

mr. Dr. Nawal Mustafa works as a strategic legal advisor at PILP. She is an expert on anti-racism, Islamophobia, feminism and decolonial and postcolonial theory.

Nawal received her PhD on the topic of migration and the regulation of intimacy and is also currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Previously, Nawal gained experiences at Amnesty International, Humanity in Action and Critical Mass. In 2018, together with three other activists based in the Netherlands, Nawal started SPEAK, a platform for Muslim women and their struggle against racism, Islamophobia and sexism.

Nawal has extensive experience in community organizing and movement building from an intersectional and decolonial perspective.

Mr. Rosa Beets is a lawyer at PILP. She provides legal advice to allies, acts as a lawyer in various strategic proceedings.

Within PILP, Rosa specializes in housing law, Islamophobia cases and the right to protest.

Previously, Rosa worked as a paralegal at the law firm Prakken d’Oliveira Human Rights Lawyers, and gained experience in strategic litigation at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin. There she focused particularly on corporate and human rights litigation.