Yasmine Ahmed

Yasmine Ahmed is UK Director of Human Rights Watch. She has two decades of experience as a public international lawyer, and human rights advocate. In her current role, she advocates for the United Kingdom’s foreign and domestic policies to be consistent with human rights. Yasmine is a well-known human rights commentator and regularly appears on the BBC, Sky, Times Radio, Al Jazeera and other broadcasters, and her comments have featured in the Guardian, the Independent, the Times, and the Washington Post.

Prior to Human Rights Watch, Yasmine was Executive Director of the multi award winning human rights organization, Rights and Security International. She also worked as a public international lawyer for the UK and Australian Governments and the UN at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Serious Crimes Unit in Timor-Leste. She started her career supporting asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. She is a Chevening Scholar, has an LLM in Public International Law from the University of London, and has taught public international law at the School of Oriental and African Studies and the University of Adelaide, South Australia. She also worked as an Associate to a Judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia and qualified as a solicitor (former solicitor) of England and Wales and a barrister and solicitor in Australia.