The current special rapporteur: Maina Kiai, Kenya (2011-17)
Mr. Maina Kiai is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful
assembly and of association. He took up his functions on 1 May 2011, for an initial period of three
years. His mandate was renewed in 2014 for an additional three years.
A lawyer trained at Nairobi and Harvard Universities, Mr. Kiai has spent the last twenty years
campaigning for human rights and constitutional reform in Kenya – notably as founder and
Executive Director of the unofficial Kenya Human Rights Commission, and then as Chairman of
Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission (2003-2008), where he won a national reputation for
his courageous and effective advocacy against official corruption, in support of political reform, and
against impunity following the violence that convulsed Kenya in 2008, causing thousands of
deaths.
From July 2010 to April 2011, Mr. Kiai was the Executive Director of the International Council on
Human Rights Policy, a Geneva-based think-tank which produces research reports and briefing
papers with policy recommendations. Mr. Kiai was also the Director of Amnesty International’s
Africa Programme (1999-2001), and the Africa Director of the International Human Rights Law
Group (now Global Rights, 2001-2003). He held research fellowships at the Danish Institute for
Human Rights (Copenhagen), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
(Washington), and the TransAfrica Forum (Washington).
He currently works as co-director of
InformAction,
a community organizing NGO in Kenya.
Mr. Kiai has regularly been an advocate informing and educating Kenyans through various media
about their human rights. In 2014,
Freedom House
awarded Kiai its Freedom Award for
his work in
Kenya.
The award was begun in 1943 “to extol recipients’ invaluable contribution to the cause of
freedom and democracy.” In October 2016, Kiai
received
the
United Nations Foundation‘s
Leo
Nevas Award for his work as Special Rapporteur. The award recognizes “those who have served
as agents of change in advancing international human rights.”