Maja Daruwala, a barrister from Lincolns Inn, has been advocating for rights and social justice for over 40 years. Her special interests lie in civil liberties, gender equality, systems reform, rule of law, accountability, promoting access to information, and access to justice. For 20 years, she was the Director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative where she is now a board member and the senior advisor. CHRI is an international NGO mandated to ensure the practical realization of human rights with a special focus on prison reform and right to information. Over the past three years, Ms. Daruwala was Senior Advisor to Tata Trusts. She is Convener and Chief Editor of the India Justice Reports 2019 and 2020, and a Board Member of the Population Foundation of India—concerned with women’s health and reproductive rights—and the Media Foundation and the Centre for Social Justice. Most recently she has joined the advisory board of the Global Governance Forum. Previously she chaired the Minority Rights Group (London) and has served on the board of the Justice Initiative at Open Society Justice Institute (New York), promoting rights-based law reform. She also served as External Advisor for the World Bank Group’s Governance and Anticorruption Strategy.
Maja Daruwala will speak at the World Justice Forum's Plenary: Defining Challenges and Setting Priorities