Prof. Rangita de Silva de Alwis is a globally recognized international women’s human rights scholar and faculty at Penn Law and Wharton School. She is also a member of the treaty body to the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Chair of its Working Group on Individual Petitions and Co- Chair of the Women Peace and Security Agenda. She is on the Board of Advisors to the President of the UN General Assembly and Vice Chair of the International Bar Associations Human Rights Institute. She is the Hillary Rodham Clinton Global Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.
She graduated from Harvard Law School with a doctorate in law and is a Senior Fellow at the Centre on the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School. Last year, she was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford’s Mansfield College. While at OII, she will be writing on human rights guardrails to AI- facilitated Lethal Autonomous Weapons System (LAWS) and collecting data on the impact of technology facilitating gender-based violence on women’s political participation and deliberative democracy. She has published widely in leading law review journals in the US and UK and is a Visiting Faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
human rights and autonomous weapons systems, technology facilitating gender-based violence, women’s political participation and deliberative democracy
de Silva de Alwis, R. ed. (2018). Making Laws, Breaking Silence: Case Studies from the Field. University of Pennsylvania Law School.
de Silva de Alwis, R., Amirfar, C. & Kennedy, H. (2025) Closing the Accountability Gap and Redrawing the Boundaries of International Law: An “All Tools” Approach to Addressing Systemic Discrimination on the Basis of Sex. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2025) Piercing the Veil of Impunity – Five Years after the UN Security Council Regulation 1325. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2025) Book Review, Women’s Property Rights Under CEDAW by José E. Alvarez and Judith Bauder. American Journal of International Law.
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2025) Gendering the New International Norms on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies. Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts.
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2024) Holding the Taliban Accountable for Gender Persecution: The Search for New Accountability Paradigms Under International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law and Women, Peace, and Security. German Law Journal
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2024) Negotiating the Balance on Gender Equity, Culture, Courts and Constitution: Negotiating the Balance on Gender Equality. Georgetown Journal of International Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2024) From Critical Mass to Critical Parity in Women’s Leadership. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2024) Obstetric Violence and Forced Sterilization: Conceptualizing Gender-Based Institutional Violence. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2024) A Rapidly Shifting Landscape: Why Digitized Violence is the Newest Category of Gender-Based Violence. La Revue des Juristes de Sciences Po
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2023) The Evolving Concept of Gender and Intersectional Stereotypes in International Norm Creation: Directions for a New CEDAW General Recommendation. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Public Affairs
de Silva de Alwis, R., Carter, A. & Nagubandi, G. (2023) Equitable Ecosystem: A Two-Pronged Approach to Equity in Artificial Intelligence. Michigan Technology Law Review
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2022) Expanding the Women Peace and Security Agenda to Protect Women’s Education in Afghanistan and Other Geographies of Conflict. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2021) Addressing Allyship in a Time of a “Thousand Papercuts“. Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Schroeder, K. (2021) The Changing Landscape of Women’s Rights Activism in China: The Continued Legacy of the Beijing Conference. UCLA Women’s Law Journal
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Verveer, M. (2021) “Time is A-Wasting”: Making the Case for CEDAW Ratification by the United States. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
de Silva de Alwis, R., Heberlig, S. & Holcomb, L. (2020) Dealing with “Dilemmas of Difference” in the Workplace. Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Martin, A. (2018) “Long Past Time”: CEDAW Ratification in the United States. Journal of Law and Public Affairs
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2018) Book Review. Women’s Human Rights and Migration: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States and India. Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law
de Silva de Alwis, R., Mnasri, A. & Ward, E. (2017) Women and the Making of the Tunisian Constitution. Berkeley Journal of International Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Jaising, I. (2016) The Role of Personal Laws in Creating a “Second Sex”. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Klugman, J. (2015) Freedom from Violence and the Law: A Global Perspective in Light of Chinese Domestic Violence Law. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2013) Why Women’s Leadership is the Cause of Our Time. UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs.
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2012) Domestic Violence Lawmaking in Asia: Some Innovative Trends in Feminist Lawmaking. UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2011) Examining Gender Stereotypes in New Work/Family Reconciliation Policies: The Creation of a New Paradigm for Egalitarian Legislation. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2009) Mining the Intersections: Advancing the Rights of Women and Children with Disabilities Within an Interrelated Web of Human Rights. Washington International Law Journal
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Daynard, R. (2009) Reconceptualizing Human Rights to Challenge Tobacco. Michigan State University Journal of International Law
Ogletree, C. Jr. & de Silva de Alwis, R. (2004) The Recently Revised Marriage Law of China: The Promise and the Reality. Texas Journal of Women & Law
Ogletree, C. Jr. & de Silva de Alwis, R. (2002) When Gender Differences Become a Trap: The Impact of China’s Labor Law on Women. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2023) SDG Goal 6 Achieve Gender – Equality and Empower All Women and Girls. In: Bantekas, I. & Seatzu, F. (eds.) The UN Sustainable Development Goals: A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 371-440.
de Silva de Alwis, R. & Mlambo-Ngcuka, P. (2022) Redefining Leadership in the Age of SDGs. Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2020) Why Women’s Leadership is the Cause of Our Time. In: Brenner, H. & Knake, R. (eds) Gender, Power, Law & Leadership 25
de Silva de Alwis, R. (2017) Conclusion: Future Trends of Sustainable Development Goal. In Cástor Miguel Díaz Barrado et al. (eds.) Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
