Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and activist, as well as an Assistant Professor at George Mason University and a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya. Ms. Erakat has served as Legal Counsel for the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives and throughout her career has helped to organize several activist communities, including the UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine divestment campaign, AMWAJ-Arab Women Arising for Justice and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

In addition to being a founding board member of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival, Ms. Erakat currently serves on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies and is an Al-Shabaka Policy Fellow. Working with human rights attorney Nizar Saghieh, Ms. Erakat also helped establish the Legal Agenda, a Lebanon-based NGO dedicated to studying law and society and that advocates for legal reform in the Arab world through civic and judicial empowerment.

Ms. Erakat’s publications include “US v. ICRC: Customary International Humanitarian Law and Universal Jurisdiction” in the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy; “New Imminence in the Time of Obama: The Impact of Targeted Killings on the Law of Self-Defense” in the Arizona Law Review; and “Overlapping Refugee Legal Regimes: Closing the Protection Gap During Secondary Forced Displacement,” forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of International Refugee Law.

In the words of the HLS community member who inspired her, “Her tireless efforts to defend the rights of the disenfranchised both here and in the Middle East definitely deserves our recognition.”

She earned her Bachelor’s degree and J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa) and a LLM in National Security from Georgetown University Law Center.