Bio
Jamil Dakwar () is the director of the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û’s Human Rights Program (HRP) which is dedicated to holding the U.S. government accountable to its international human rights obligations and commitments. He leads a team of lawyers and advocates who use a human rights framework to complement existing ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û legal and legislative advocacy, primarily focusing on promoting racial and economic justice and ending mass incarceration, police violence, and extreme sentencing. HRP conducts human rights research, documentation, and public education, as well as engages in litigation and advocacy before U.S. courts and international human rights bodies.
Mr. Dakwar conducts advocacy before the U.S. government on human rights issues, with a particular focus on the domestic implementation of U.S. human rights obligations. His expertise frequently appears in domestic and international media, including the , , , , , , and . He serves as the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û’s main representative to the United Nations and leads the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û’s international advocacy before other regional and international bodies, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Dakwar was one of ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û’s first observers to the military commission system at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. In 2020, he was appointed as a member of the New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Prior to joining the ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û in 2004, Jamil worked at Human Rights Watch, where he conducted research, advocated, and published reports on issues of torture and detention in Egypt, Morocco, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory. Before coming to the United States, he was a senior attorney with Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel, where he filed and argued human rights cases before Israeli courts and advocated before international forums. He is a graduate of Tel Aviv University and NYU School of Law. He is adjunct professor at New York University and Hunter College. He is trilingual and speaks Arabic (mother tongue), English, and Hebrew.
Featured work
Sep 17, 2008
Protecting the Constitution, At Home and Abroad
Jun 23, 2008
Unlawful Command Influence
Jun 20, 2008
Guantánamo's Frequent Flyer Program
May 23, 2008
Guantánamo Detainee Wants to Phone Home
May 22, 2008
Boycott
Nov 9, 2007
Guantánamo: Back to Square One
Jan 17, 2007
Gitmo's Inconvenient Truth
May 18, 2006
The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?
May 16, 2006
"The Mouth That Prohibits Is the Mouth That Permits"
Apr 7, 2006
Impartiality and AG Gonzales