Makau W. Mutua
Dean, SUNY Distinguished Professor Floyd H. and Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar
LL.B., University of Dar-es-Salaam, 1983
LL.M., University of Dar-es-Salaam, 1984
LL.M., Harvard Law School, 1985
S.J.D., Harvard Law School, 1987
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
319 O'Brian
Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
Phone:(716) 645-2052
Assistant:
Sandra Conti, 524 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2091
Timothy Conti, 319 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2052
Rebecca Donoghue, 320 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2052
Biography:
Makau Mutua is Dean, SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. He is the Director of the Human Rights Center and teaches international human rights, international business transactions, and international law. Professor Mutua has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, the University of Iowa College of Law, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, and the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica.
He was educated at the University of Nairobi, the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and at Harvard Law School, where he obtained a Doctorate of Juridical Science in 1987. Professor Mutua was Co-Chair of the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law.
In 2002-03, while on sabbatical in Kenya, Professor Mutua was appointed by the Government of Kenya as Chairman of the Task Force on the Establishment of a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission. The Task Force recommended a truth commission for Kenya. During the same time, Professor Mutua was a delegate to the National Constitutional Conference, the forum that produced a contested draft constitution for Kenya.
Professor Mutua is the author of Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (2002). He has written numerous scholarly articles exploring topical subjects in international law, human rights, and religion. These include "The Ideology of Human Rights," "Hope and Despair for a New South Africa: the Limits of Rights Discourse," "The Banjul Charter and the African Cultural Fingerprint: an Evaluation of the Language of Duties," and "Why Redraw the Map of Africa: a Moral and Legal Inquiry" published in various law reviews. He has written human rights reports for the United Nations and leading NGOs. He has authored dozens of articles for popular publications such as the New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Nation, East African Standard, and the Washington Post.
Previously, Professor Mutua was the Associate Director at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. He was also the Director of the Africa Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He serves as the Chairman of the Kenya Human Rights Commission and sits on the boards of several international organizations, such as Global Rights, and academic journals, such as the Leiden Journal of International Law. He is a frequent commentator on politics, human rights, law, and current affairs in the print and electronic media.
He has conducted numerous human rights, diplomatic, and rule of law missions to countries in Africa, Latin America, and Europe. He has lectured and spoken at public fora in many parts of the world, including Japan, Brazil, France, and Ethiopia.
Selected Publications:
Books
Human Rights NGOs in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)
Kenya's Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008).
Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002)
Articles
Transitional Justice in Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, Pambazuka News (July 14, 2008) [SSRN]
Human Rights and Powerlessness: Pathologies of Choice and Substance, Buffalo Law Review vol. 56: 1027-1034 (2008) [SSRN]
Human Rights in Africa: the Limited Promise of Liberalism, 51 African Studies Review 17-39 (2008) [SSRN]
Beyond Juba: Does Uganda Need a National Truth and Reconciliation Process?, 13 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review 401-414 (2007) [SSRN]
Change in the Human Rights Universe, 20 Harvard Human Rights Journal 3 (2007)
Standard Setting in Human Rights: Critique and Prognosis" 29 Human Rights Quarterly 547-630 (2007). [SSRN]
The Iraq Paradox: Minority and Group Rights in a Viable Constitution, 54 Buffalo Law Review 927-955 (2006). [SSRN]
Terrorism and Human Rights: Power, Culture, and Subordination, 8 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review 301-313 (2002) [SSRN]
Justice Under Siege: The Rule of Law and Judicial Subservience in Kenya, 23 Human Rights Quarterly 96-118 (2001) [SSRN]
Savages, Victims, and Saviors: the Metaphor of Human Rights, 42 Harvard International Law Journal 201-245 (2001) [SSRN]
Critical Race Theory and International Law: The View of an Insider-Outsider, 45 Villanova Law Review 841-853 (2000) [SSRN]
From Nuremberg to the Rwanda Tribunal: Justice or Retribution?, 6 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review 77-91 (2000)
The Ideology of Human Rights, 36 Virginia Journal of International Law 589-657 (1996) [SSRN]. See also "The Ideology of Human Rights: Toward Post-Liberal Democracy?, in Governance and Legitimacy in Africa 109-164 (Kofi Quashigah and Obiora Chinedu Okafor, eds., 1999). See also Politics and Human Rights: An Essential Symbiosis, in The Role of Law in International Politics 149-175 (Michael Byers, ed., 2000)
Chapters
The Transformation of Africa: A Critique of the Rights Discourse, International Human Rights Law in a Global Context (Felipe Gomez Isa & Koen de Feyter, editors) (2009) [SSRN]
Just Back from the Human Rights Council, Proceedings of the 102th Annual Meeting, ASIL, April 2008 [SSRN]
Political Parties in Transitions: The Kenyan Experience in Political Succession in East Africa: in search of a limited leadership (C.M. Peter & F. Kopsieker, editors) (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Kenya office, 2006) (109-121) [SSRN]
African Human Rights Organizations: Questions of Context and Legitimacy in Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Development in Africa (P.T. Zeleza & P.J.McConnaughay, editors) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) (191-197) [SSRN]
The Complexity of Universalism in Human Rights in Human Rights With Modesty: the problem of universalism (A. Sajo, editor) (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004) (51-64) [SSRN]
Proselytism and Cultural Integrity in Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: a deskbook (T. Lindholm,W.C. Durham & B.G. Tahzib-Lie, editors) (2004) (651-668) [SSRN]
The Banjul Charter and the Case for an African Cultural Fingerprint in Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa (A.A. An-Na'im, editor) (2002) (68-107) [SSRN]
Protecting Human Rights in a Global Economy: Challenges for the World Trade Organization (with Robert Howse) in Human Rights in Development (H. Stokke & A. Tostensen, editors) (Kluwer Law International, 2001) (51-82) [SSRN]
What is TWAIL? in International Law in Ferment: a new vision for theory and practice: proceedings of the 94th Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law, 2000) (31-39) [SSRN]
Limitations on Religious Rights: Problematizing Religious Freedom in the African Context in Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: legal perspectives (J.D. van der Vyver & J.Witte, Jr., editors) (1996) (417-440) (reprinted in Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, vol. 5: 75-105 (1999))[SSRN]
Reviews
An Apology for a Pathological Brute, Human Rights Quarterly vol. 31: 806-809 (2009) (reviewing Tim Jeal, Stanley: the impossible life of Africa's greatest explorer (Faber and Faber, 2007)
American Journal of International Law vol. 95: 255-257 (2001) (reviewing J. Shand Watson, Theory and Reality in the International Protection of Human Rights (1999))
