Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is a Nigerian human rights activist, lawyer, professor, and writer. He is currently Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School and chairs the Truth, Justice, and Peace Commission, a transitional justice initiative established to address the crises of violence and agitation in the states of south-east Nigeria. His research focuses on contemporary challenges of multilateralism in regional systems in development, human rights and governance. He is the co-author of Too Good to Die: Third Term and the Myth of the Indispensable Man in Africa (Kachifo, 2018).

Odinkalu is the former Chairman of Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission and served on the panel of eminent persons that negotiated the return of The Gambia to the Commonwealth in 2017. He recently served as the senior team manager for the Africa Program of Open Society Justice Initiative. He has also worked as an advisor for the Ford Foundation New York, World Bank, African Union, International Council for Human Rights Policy, Geneva; and many others. 

Odinkalu obtained his law degree (LLB) at Imo State University in 1987 and was called to the bar in 1988. He emerged as the best graduating student of the School of Legal Studies, Imo State University in 1987 and won the Chief FRA Williams prize for best student in Legal Drafting and Conveyancing in 1988. He obtained a master's degree in law at the University of Lagos in 1990 and holds a PhD in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He became the assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan between 1988 and 1989 and worked with the Civil Liberties Organization as director of projects and planning. 

Shortly thereafter, Odinkalu left Nigeria for the United Kingdom, where he became the legal officer for Africa, INTERIGHTS between July 1998 and February 2003. In 1998, the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone appointed him as a Human Rights Advisor. In February 2003, Odinkalu was appointed as the senior legal officer for Africa for Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI).

Odinkalu has acted as counsel in international human rights litigation before Africa’s regional human rights courts and tribunals and was involved in the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. He is associated with several advocacy initiatives for the protection of human rights, including the International Refugee Rights Initiative.