J. Jarpa Dawuni is Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University, Washington D.C. She is a qualified Barrister-at-Law before the Ghana Superior Courts. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from Georgia State University. Her primary areas of research include judicial politics, women in the legal professions, gender and the law, international human rights, women’s civil society organizing, and democratization. She is the editor of the World Bank book Gender, Judging and the Courts in Africa: Selected Studies (Routledge, 2021). Her other books include International Courts and the African Woman Judge: Unveiled Narratives (Routledge, 2018) co-edited with Judge Akua Kuenyehia and Gender and the Judiciary in Africa: From Obscurity to Parity? (Routledge, 2016), co-edited with Gretchen Bauer. She is the founding Director of the Howard University Center for Women, Gender, and Global Leadership established in 2020. In 2020 she was the recipient of the Women in Law Academia International Award from the Women in Law Initiative, Austria. She is the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL) which focuses on enhancing the capacity of women in law across Africa and the Diaspora.