Mr. Ashfaq Khalfan,
Kenya,
CISDL Director

akhalfan@cisdl.org

Ashfaq Khalfan, B.C.L & LL.B (McGill), B.A. Hons. (McGill) is director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. He has published on a range of topics including human rights and sustainable development, minority rights and constitutional reform and poverty eradication. Recent publications include Sustainable Development Law: Principles, Practices and Prospects (Oxford University Press, 2004), with Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger and Legal Resources for the Right to Water: International and National Standards (Geneva: COHRE, 2004), with M. Langford, C. Fairstein and H. Jones. He initiated the CISDL Human Rights and Poverty Eradication programme and its research project on debt legitimacy in 2001, co-authoring the CISDL’s Working Paper on this issue which is now cited as the leading legal analysis of the concept of odious debt in international law. He also serves as Coordinator of the Right to Water Programme at the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, an international human rights organisation. He has coordinated a series of publications on the human right to water, covering legal standards, integration into development programmes and indicators for the right to water. He has monitored and actively lobbied against violations of the rights to housing and water in a range of countries, provided legal advice to other civil society organisations, and has served as an expert consultant to the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). He has served as an editor on the Revue québécoise de droit international, a Montreal-based law journal. He has previously worked with the Kituo Cha Sheria (Legal Advice Centre) in Kenya carrying on research on insecurity in informal settlements. He coordinated the work of a civil society coalition on constitutional reform at the Law & Society Trust, a Sri Lankan human rights NGO. He has also worked with the Investigations Branch of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Federal Department of Justice in Canada. He holds degrees in Civil Law and Common Law (McGill, Great Distinction), and a BA (Hons) (McGill) in Political Science. He speaks English, Swahili and French.