Tawanda Mutasah (born 1970) is a lawyer, human rights advocate, and formerly Global Director of Programs at the

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

Biography

He was Senior Director for

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

Policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...

at the Amnesty International, International Secretariat, leading the global movement's work on policy development, and its contributions to and interpretations of

international human rights law International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, ag ...

and

international humanitarian law International humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the laws of armed conflict or the laws of war, is the law that regulates the conduct of war (''wikt:jus in bello, jus in bello''). It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit ...

. He trained in law at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

and the

University of Zimbabwe The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was opened in 1952 as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. It was later renamed the Univers ...

, and holds a management degree from the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

in Johannesburg. He has worked for Oxfam Great Britain as a spokesman on African issues, and previously directed OSISA, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. He speaks and writes on

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

, transparency, democratic governance,

rule of law The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...

, and

economic justice Economic justice is a component of social justice and welfare economics. It is a set of moral and ethical principles for building economic institutions, where the ultimate goal is to create an opportunity for each person to establish a sufficie ...

issues. Mutasah has served as a governing board member for the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, convened by the African Development Bank, African Union, and UN Economic Commission for Africa.

References

Living people 1970 births Harvard Law School alumni 20th-century Zimbabwean lawyers 21st-century Zimbabwean lawyers University of Zimbabwe alumni New York University School of Law alumni University of the Witwatersrand alumni {{Zimbabwe-bio-stub