Adebayo Okeowo (Ph.D), Associate Director of Programs, Regional & Partner Engagement
Adebayo Okeowo is a human rights lawyer with over a decade’s experience working around issues of socio-economic rights, environmental justice, and international criminal accountability. His current focus is on exploring, through research and practice, the intersection between human rights and technology.
In his role as the Associate Director of Programs, Regional & Partner Engagement, Adebayo provides strategic insight and guidance on the day-to-day operational and programmatic work of WITNESS across the regions, ensuring that human rights impact is achieved for the communities we support, center and serve. Previously, Adebayo led WITNESS’ work in Africa, where he implemented projects seeking to secure justice for victims of police brutality, war crimes, technology-facilitated violations, and environmental crimes.
In the course of his career, Adebayo has worked for the Centre for Human Rights in South Africa, Global Rights Nigeria, and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. He also served as the Lab Manager at the University of Pretoria hub of the Digital Verification Corps project – a collaborative initiative between Amnesty International and six universities around the world which uses digital tools to verify citizen media with the aim of advancing accountability for atrocities.
Though a self-taught photographer and filmmaker, he has won two human rights photography awards and had his work exhibited in Italy, Mauritius and South Africa and has executed campaigns focusing on the rights of vulnerable groups such as persons with albinism, women, and older persons. In 2017, he delivered a TEDx talk on the Visual Disruption of Injustice.
Adebayo holds a doctorate on International Human Rights Law from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, a LLM from the same university, and a LLB from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. You will find him tweeting about social justice, international criminal accountability, human rights and technology via @AdebayOkeowo