Robert Kushen

Robert Kushen is the Managing Director of the European Roma Rights Centre, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) using legal advocacy, including strategic litigation, to protect the rights of Roma throughout Europe. He has been active in the human rights field in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for over 20 years, beginning in 1988 when he helped the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights establish its first program in the Soviet Union. Kushen served as a Schell Fellow at Human Rights Watch from 1990–91, where he led research and reporting on human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. From 1996–99 and 2003–07, he served in a number of positions at the Open Society Institute (OSI), including Director of International Operations from 2004–07. At OSI he was responsible for a number of human rights programming areas, including initiatives focusing on Roma rights and disability rights.

Kushen is also active in the areas of health, human rights and development. From 1999–2002, he was the Executive Director of Doctors of the World, an NGO committed to addressing health care problems caused by human rights abuses in the U.S. and around the world. From 2007–08 he served as the Executive Director of the Harvard PEPFAR Program, an $80 million-per-year program that provides HIV treatment services to 100,000 patients and related technical assistance to health care workers in Africa.

From 1991–1996, Kushen served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where he worked as counsel to the bureau on counterterrorism, liaison to the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and negotiated a number of international agreements in the areas of scientific and environmental cooperation.

Kushen holds a J.D. from Columbia University, a B.A. from Harvard College in Russian Studies, and is the author of a number of publications in the area of human rights and non-profit law. He is a member of the New York Bar Association and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Boards of several NGOs dealing with human rights and development issues.