Michael H. Posner

Michael Posner, founder and president of [http://www.humanrightsfirst.org Human Rights First] (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), has been at the forefront of the international human rights movement for 30 years. He is a frequent public commentator and his opinion essays have appeared in newspapers around the country. Posner has also testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress on a wide range of human rights and refugee topics. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences and events in the U.S. and abroad.

In 1980, Posner played a key role in proposing and campaigning for the first U.S. law providing for political asylum, which became part of the Refugee Act of 1980. He also proposed, drafted, and campaigned for the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), which was adopted by Congress and signed into law in 1992. In 1998, Posner led the Human Rights First delegation to the Rome conference at which the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted. As a member of the White House Apparel Industry Partnership Task Force, Posner helped found the [http://www.fairlabor.org/about/fla_board Fair Labor Association ] (FLA) in 1997 to promote corporate accountability for working conditions in the apparel industry. He sits on the FLA’s board of directors. Since 2007, Posner has worked in another multi-shareholder initiative to create the Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy to protect and advance the human rights of free expression in the information and communications technology industry. He also serves on the board of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.

Before joining Human Rights First, Posner was a lawyer with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago. Posner lectured at Yale Law School from 1981 to 1984, and has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University Law School since 1984. A member of the California Bar and the Illinois Bar, he received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall), and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.