Hanny Megally is a Distinguished Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC), focusing on analysis to improve justice outcomes for victims and survivors in Syria and other conflict-related countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Since 2017, he has served as Commissioner on the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry on Syria. He came to CIC after being the Chief of the Asia, Pacific, and MENA Branch at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland.
Previously, he was Vice-President for Programs at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), which he joined in 2003. He has nearly 45 years of experience in the field of human rights, transitional justice, and conflict resolution, and began his career at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in 1977.
From 1984 to 1994, he headed the Middle East Research department at Amnesty International, based in London, UK. Subsequently, he ran the Ford Foundation’s social justice program in the Middle East from the Foundation’s Cairo office in Egypt, and from 1997 to 2003, he was the Executive Director of the MENA Division of Human Rights Watch.
He has overseen country programs and traveled extensively in the MENA and Asia-Pacific regions, leading human rights investigation missions and conducting high-level discussions with heads of state and governments. He is a widely sought-after commentator on human rights and political developments, particularly in the MENA region.
