Rayhan Asat

Rayhan Asat is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer and a non-resident senior fellow at The Atlantic Council.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and former anti-corruption attorney at a major U.S. law firm, Asat has worked on high-profile corruption cases. Asat specializes in international human rights law, anti-corruption, and compliance with best business practices. Her legal and policy work centers around enforcing international human rights norms, fighting against corruption, advancing civil liberties, atrocity prevention, curtailing forced labor, and promoting corporate accountability. She previously advised the World Bank and OECD to design Human-Centered Business Integrity Principles and now works with civil society, diplomats, and lawmakers to address various human rights concerns, particularly the atrocities in Xinjiang. Asat has testified before the Canadian House of Commons, The UK House of Commons, the Lithuanian Parliament, and the US Congress at a joint hearing convened by the China-Congressional Executive Commission and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission concerning egregious human rights abuses. Western democracies and lawmakers, including the United States, have adopted her policy recommendations in their atrocity prevention and response strategy.

Asat is a sought-after speaker at various human rights and international law forums. She was invited by President Biden to speak at the Summit for Democracy in December 2021. She was a featured speaker at the Geneva Summit for Democracy and Human Rights and Oslo Freedom Forum. She was a featured speaker at the Global Progressive Forums along with world leaders, including New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. She was selected to the prestigious Yale World Fellow for her human rights work and leadership.

Asat has been featured in various media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, Foreign Policy, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Harvard Law Today, Yale Politics, Canadian Lawyer, and Al-Jazeera, among others. As an attorney and policy advisor, her writing has also been published in many legal journals, and her opinions have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, NBC News, The Hill, and other prominent publications.

Asat sits on the advisory board of several human rights organizations and serves as a senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.