July 9, 2024 | Bassam Khawaja ‘15, Supervising Attorney and Lecturer in Law at the Smith Family Human Rights Clinic, has been appointed Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. In this role, he will supervise the organization’s work on North Africa and oversee work on social protection in the region. 

“We are thrilled for Bassam, and warmly congratulate him on his new appointment,” said Sarah Knuckey, Clinical Professor of Law, and Director of the Human Rights Institute and Clinic. “Bassam has made exceptional contributions in his time at Columbia, innovating work in the area of inequality and poverty while mentoring scores of students, and we look forward to continued collaborations.”

At Columbia Law School, Khawaja co-taught in the Human Rights Clinic, supervising teams of students, and spearheading projects on poverty and inequality. He led numerous impactful projects, including working with students to support the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty's thematic reports to the UN General Assembly and drafting UN letters of allegation to the US government and corporations. He also established new partnerships between the Human Rights Clinic and Oxfam America's Economic Justice Program and supported students’ advocacy at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

During his time at Columbia, Khawaja has been a steadfast ally to students across Columbia Law School. He mentored and supported dozens of students, guiding their journeys in human rights advocacy at the law school. He also made significant contributions to Columbia’s unique 1L human rights advocates program.  

Khawaja will remain at Columbia as a Senior Fellow at the Human Rights Institute and continue to serve as a resource for students preparing for careers in human rights work. 

“It’s been an absolute privilege to have been able to return to Columbia for the past two years to teach and work with brilliant students and the amazing team at the Human Rights Institute and Clinic,” said Khawaja. “I am excited to stay involved and continue to advise and mentor Columbia students.”

A graduate of Columbia Law School, Bassam was a student in the Human Rights Clinic in 2014-15, a James Kent Scholar, and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. He previously worked as co-director of the Human Rights and Privatization Project at NYU Law School’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, as Senior Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, and for Human Rights Watch, where he was the Leonard H. Sandler Fellow in the children’s rights division and the Lebanon and Kuwait researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division.

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