Karima Bennoune

Karima Bennoune was UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights from October 2015 to October 2021.

Karima Bennoune grew up in Algeria and the United States. She is Professor of Law and Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall Research Scholar at the University of California-Davis School of Law where she teaches courses on human rights and international law. She is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Her research and writing, including on cultural rights issues, has been widely published in leading journals and periodicals. She has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize (2014) for her recent book, “Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism.” The book was based on some 300 interviews with people from 30 countries and tells the stories of people of Muslim heritage challenging extremism. The TED talk based on the book has been viewed by over 1.3 million people.

Ms. Bennoune has worked in the field of human rights for more than 20 years, including with governments and non-governmental organizations, and has carried out field missions, trial observation, election observation and research in many regions of the world. Professor Bennoune has also served as a consultant for UNESCO. She has frequently commented on human rights issues for the global media.