About Dinah PoKempner
Dinah PoKempner is an authority on international human rights law, and its relevance to current challenges:
digital technology, the new modes of armed conflict, organizational management and business ethics. She has a knack for getting to the heart of issues, and has taught international and national legal standards in many countries over her career. She has a knack for getting to the heart of issues, and has taught international and national legal standards in many countries over her career.
With 30 years of prior experience in field research, legal and policy guidance, and advocacy at Human Rights Watch, ultimately landing as a policy expert and General Counsel, she is a professional who applies tested values to practical dilemmas.
PoKempner writes and speaks extensively on a wide variety of human rights issues, most recently on speech and privacy in the digital age, serving recently as Senior Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.
When not thinking, writing or speaking on public policy issues, she strives to be a ceramic artist and good mom to three amazing children and a feisty cur.
PoKempner’s interest is in difficult questions that cross disciplines and value systems:
Is torture ever justified?
Should we deploy technology we can’t understand even if it produces results better than flawed human judgment?
Should we take illiberal measures to preserve liberal democracy?
A permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, PoKempner has represented Human Rights Watch in Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, served as a professor at Columbia University and The New School, received a fellowship recipient of Harvard’s Carr Center, and is now involved in democracy and election-protection efforts in the U.S. with Crimson Goes Blue.
Other Affiliations
Human Rights Data Analysis Group | Board Member
Washington, D.C.
Dangerous Speech Project | Board/Advisor
New York, NY
Council on Foreign Relations | Permanent member since 2009
London
René Cassin | Advisor
Boston
International Center for Conciliation | Board Member
Hong Kong
Yale-China Association, Chinese University of Hong Kong | Faculty and Donor