LEGAL PEOPLE

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently announced appointments to the Michigan Nursing Homes COVID-19 Preparedness Task Force.

Among the appointees is Hari “Roger” Mali II.

Mali is the owner and CEO of Mission Management Service, LLC in Troy where they specialize in skilled nursing care and senior housing management. He received his law degree from Wayne State University Law School and his Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Bowdoin College.

The governor has designated Mali to serve as co-chair of the Task Force. 

This appointment is not subject to advice and consent of the Senate. 

The Michigan Nursing Homes COVID-19 Preparedness Task Force was created by Whitmer’s Executive Order No. 2020-135 as an advisory body in the Department of Health and Human Services to adequately inform the state’s response to a potential second wave of COVID-19. The Task Force is charged with, among other things, coordinating across state government and with industry stakeholders to ensure a broad range of input from relevant entities, analyzing relevant data on the threat of COVID-19 in nursing homes and making recommendations to the governor on improving data quality, reporting on best practices to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and provide appropriate and timely technical assistance to nursing homes.

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Professor Steven Ratner will serve as the new director for the Donia Human Rights Center (DHRC) at the University of Michigan for a three year term, effective July 1. 

Ratner is the Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. His teaching and research focus on public international law and a range of disputes involving states, non-state armed groups, individuals, and corporations, including business and human rights, regulation of foreign investment, territorial conflicts, counter-terrorism strategies, the law of armed conflict, and accountability for human rights violations. 

He began his legal career as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department. In 1998–1999, he was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to a three-person group of experts to consider options for bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice; and in 2010–2011, he was a member of the U.N.’s three-person Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, which advised Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on human rights violations related to the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. He also has served in the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and at the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in The Hague.

Ratner earned a law degree from Yale Law School, an MA (diplôme) from the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études Internationales (Geneva), and an AB from Princeton.

The Donia Human Rights Center is a forum for intellectual exchange on issues around human rights among scholars, practitioners, students, and the broader public.