Salma Waheedi

Salma Waheedi is a Lecturer on Law and Executive Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World at Harvard Law School. She is a lawyer, legal searcher, and advocate with years of experience in international advocacy and litigation before international courts and UN institutions and mechanisms. She advises on questions of international human rights and humanitarian law in the contemporary Middle East and has represented and advised parties before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. She works in collaboration with communities and advocates across the Middle East and North Africa, especially on topics of international accountability, gender justice and women’s rights, freedom of speech, social and economic rights, and prisoners’ rights. 

Waheedi’s academic research and teaching focus on international law, gender, comparative constitutional law, and Islamic law in contemporary contexts. At the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, Waheedi leads collaborative policy research and advocacy projects to train and empower students to become effective international lawyers and advocates. Waheedi is currently a Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace at the Harvard Divinity School, focusing on questions at the intersection of religion, law, and peaceful conflict resolution, and an Affiliated Faculty of the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Prior to joining Harvard Law School, Waheedi practiced in the areas of corporate accountability litigation, anticorruption and trade compliance, and immigration and refugee law, including at Chicago’s United African Organization, Baker McKenzie LLP, and the Transnational Development Clinic at Yale Law School. She held visiting fellowships at Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program, Harvard University’s Committee on Middle Eastern Studies, and the American University in Cairo. Between 2004-2012, she held senior positions at Bahrain’s Economic Development Board and Ministry of Finance, specializing in international trade, economic policy, and institutional reform; engaged in Middle East policy research and analysis at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center; and served as a business strategy consultant in the energy sector.

Waheedi holds a JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, an MA in Government and International Law from Georgetown University, an MA in International Affairs with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies from American University, and a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. She is admitted to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C.