Dr Josephine Ndagire is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public and Comparative Law at the School of Law, Makerere University, where she has taught and researched since 2018, following an earlier appointment as Assistant Lecturer (2009–2010). She is a legal scholar and practitioner working at the intersection of international law, governance, accountability systems, and emerging technologies, with scholarship and teaching spanning criminal law, international criminal law, transitional justice, human rights and organised crime.

Dr Ndagire’s career bridges academia, international organizations, and civil society. She currently serves as a Council Member of Penal Reform International (London, United Kingdom), a Council Member of the International Society for Human Rights (Bonn, Germany), and a member of the International Advisory Board on Gender and Justice at Bristol University Press. At Makerere, she convenes the faculty colloquia series and served as a Secretary to the University Staff Appeals Tribunal.

Previously, she was an Expert Member of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul, Gambia); Head of the Training Department at the International Nuremberg Principles Academy (Nuremberg, Germany); Director of Legal Services at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (Kampala, Uganda); and a Researcher and Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (Freiburg, Germany). She also held earlier positions with the International Association of Women Judges (Washington, DC), the Wellesley Centers for Women (Massachusetts, United States), and the Uganda Human Rights Commission (Kampala, Uganda).

Her research has been published by leading academic presses and institutions, including Springer, Rowman & Littlefield, Duncker & Humblot Berlin, Verlag Dr Kovač Hamburg, Oxford University Press/Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and leading human rights, justice, and genocide studies journals. She has advised the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and other regional and international bodies on transitional justice, criminal justice reform, gender-responsive law, and institutional responses to complex harms, particularly in conflict and post-conflict settings.

She holds a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) from Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia, United States), a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Human Rights Law from the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, United States), and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), where she graduated in the top 5% of her class.