Professor Lynn Welchman appointed to serve as a member of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on ...

1 December 2021

Lynn Welchman, Professor of Law at SOAS, has been appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, to serve as a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. The Commission will investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law committed in the country since March 2011.

Professor Welchman brings to the Commission vast experience in the field of human rights law with a specialisation in the Middle East and North Africa. Professor Welchman teaches Islamic law, Gender, Law and Society in the Middle East and North Africa, and Human Rights and Islamic Law. She designed and convenes the International Human Rights Clinic, for which she was joint winner of the SOAS Director’s Prize for Inspirational Teaching in 2019.

After graduating from Cambridge University with Honours, Ms. Welchman worked with several local and international human rights organisations, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Haiti and Rwanda. She is a board member of the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Support of Human Rights Defenders, and on the International Advisory Board of the Open Society Foundation’s MENA office.

The Commission of Inquiry is scheduled to present a written report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council at its next session in March 2022.