Jamil Dakwar is Director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program (HRP), which is dedicated to holding the U.S. government accountable to its international human rights obligations and commitments. HRP uses a human rights framework to complement existing ACLU legal and legislative advocacy, and to advance social justice in the areas of national security, immigrants' rights, women's rights, racial justice, death penalty and children’s rights. HRP conducts human rights public education and engages in advocacy and litigation before U.S. courts and international bodies, including the United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Prior to joining the ACLU, he worked at Human Rights Watch, where he conducted research and published reports on issues of torture and detention in Egypt, Morocco, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Before coming to the United States, Dakwar was a senior attorney with Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel. At Adalah, he filed and argued human rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court and advocated before international forums. He received several human rights and public interest fellowships including: the Furman International Human Rights Fellowship, New York University Law School’s Public Service Law Fellowship, and the Washington College of Law - NIF Law Fellowship.
Dakwar is co-chair of the American Constitution Society's Working Group on International Law and the Constitution, which focuses on the relationship between international law and the Constitution, and the implications of this relationship for human rights. He is also a founding and steering committee member of the Human Rights at Home Campaign.