Evelyn Mary Aswad is an American legal scholar and the Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law at the

University of Oklahoma College of Law The University of Oklahoma College of Law is the professional graduate law school of the University of Oklahoma. It is located on the University's campus in Norman, Oklahoma. The College of Law was founded in 1909 by a resolution of the OU Boa ...

, and was previously an official in the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

.''Foreign Service Journal'', Vol. 91, Iss. 1-6 (2014), p. 54. , she serves as a member of Facebook's independent Oversight Board. Aswad received a B.S.F.S. from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Walsh School of Foreign Service The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It is considered to be one of the world's leading international affairs schools, granting degrees at both ...

in 1992, and in the summer of 1993 received a grant from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

to study issues relating to the use of

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

. She received her J.D. from the

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

in 1995. That same year, Aswad published a noted

law review A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also pr ...

article, ''Torture By Means of Rape'',Katharine T. Bartlett, Angela P. Harris, ''Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary'' (1998), p. 842. "arguing that rape committed by government officials for political purposes should be recognized as torture under international law". Aswad then worked as an attorney for the

, where she became director of the Office of Human Rights and Refugees, serving in that position until 2013, when she joined the University of Oklahoma College of Law as a professor of

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

holding the school's Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law, and as director of its Center for International Business and Human Rights. Aswad "specializes in the application of

international human rights International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, ag ...

standards to content moderation issues", and her scholarship "has focused on issues like freedom of expression online, how foreign and domestic laws affect human rights standards, mass atrocities, global corporate responsibility standards and how the United States engages the world on human rights". She has proposed in several articles "that social media companies use universal human rights protections in their content moderation decisions". In May 2020, she was selected to serve as one of the 20 founding members of Facebook's Oversight Board, and in July 2020, Aswad was tapped to lead "comparative research on First Amendment and international human rights law's protection for speech online", funded by a grant to the University of Oklahoma College of Law and other institutions from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In July 2023, following a recommendation from the oversight board to deplatform Cambodian head of state

Hun Sen Hun Sen (; km, ហ៊ុន សែន, ; born 5 August 1952) is a Cambodian politician and former military commander who has served as the prime minister of Cambodia since 1985. He is the longest-serving head of government of Cambodia, and ...

, the government of

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

listed Aswad as one of 22 people connected with Meta who were banned from entering the country.

References

External links

50 Making a Difference profile: Evelyn Aswad
''The Journal Record'' (October 11, 2019) {{DEFAULTSORT:Aswad, Evelyn Walsh School of Foreign Service alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni United States Department of State officials University of Oklahoma faculty Human rights lawyers Facebook Oversight Board members Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)