OVERVIEW
As a Legal Analyst with Partners in Justice International, Ms. Tugade is a consultant tasked with performing complex criminal intelligence and evidentiary research and analysis work relating to crimes against humanity in North Korea.
BIOGRAPHY
Ruby Rosselle “Ross” Tugade is a Filipino lawyer with experience in the documentation, monitoring, and analysis of gross human rights violations in the Philippines. Ms. Tugade assisted in the adjudication of claims for reparations of victims of the Martial Law regime in the Philippines, covering violations that occurred from 1972 to 1986. She has also been involved, through various capacities, in assisting stakeholders in contemporary national human rights issues in the Philippines, in particular through her advanced skills in legal analysis. Her professional experience has allowed her to work with key decision makers in human rights policy-making and civil society groups alike.
Recently, Ms. Tugade assisted in the litigation of the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2020 before the Philippine Supreme Court, focusing on legal arguments based on international law. She also served as a member of an ad hoc transitional justice working group of experts and practitioners, providing support in legal research and analysis.
Ms. Tugade concurrently serves as a lecturer in the University of the Philippines College of Law and the Ateneo de Manila University. As an academic, Ms. Tugade has written on various human rights law issues, transitional justice, and international humanitarian law. In 2020, she was awarded second prize by the International Committee on the Red Cross – Philippine delegation in the inaugural academic essay writing competition for her paper characterizing communist-tagging in the Philippines as a breach of the principle of distinction.
Ms. Tugade obtained a Master of Laws in Transnational Crime and Justice in 2020 from the University for Peace and United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute joint program housed in Turin, Italy. Her Juris Doctor degree was conferred by the University of the Philippines College of Law in 2016. During her 2L year, she served as the Vice Chair of the Philippine Law Journal, Asia’s oldest English-language law review. She received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the Ateneo de Manila University.
EDUCATION
- University for Peace & United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, LL.M., 2020
- University of the Philippines, J.D., 2016
- Ateneo de Manila University, AB Political Science, 2010
LANGUAGES
- English: fluent
- Filipino: native fluency (mother tongue)
ADMISSIONS
- Philippine Bar
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Ruby Rosselle L. Tugade. “In Duterte’s Perfect Storm: A Rule of Law Dispatch in the Dire Days of Philippine Liberal Democracy” in Ateneo Law Journal, Volume 66, Issue No. 2.
- Pangalangan, Guidote, Fernandez, and Tugade. “Philippines: Civilized Vindications for Uncivilized Wrongs” in Ekaterina Aristova and Uglješa Grušić (eds.), Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux: Key Legal Developments in Selected Jurisdictions (2022).
- Ruby Rosselle L. Tugade. “Enforcing the Right to Health: The Philippines and COVID-19 from a Human Rights Perspective” in Bedan Law Review, Volume IX (2021).
- Ruby Rosselle L. Tugade. “Justice-Oriented Approaches to Pandemic-Related Human Rights Abuses in the Philippines” in Joel Mark Barredo et. al (eds.), Southeast Asia, Infected and Interrupted: Elevating Critical Voices on the State of Human Rights and Peace in the Time of COVID- 19 (2021).
- Ruby Rosselle L. Tugade. “Beyond Legal Transformation: Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice Mechanisms in the Philippines” in Philippine Law Journal, Volume 93, Issue No. 1 (2020).
- Ruby Rosselle L. Tugade. “An Unwinnable War: Locating the Value of Life in the Middle of the Philippines’ Campaign Against Illegal Drugs” in University of Asia & the Pacific Law Journal, Volume No. 2 (2019).
- Pangalangan, Fernandez, and Tugade. “Marcosian Atrocities: Historical Revisionism and the Legal Constraints on Forgetting” in Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law, Volume 19, Issue No. 2 (2018).