Freeing Prisoners of Conscience Worldwide
Jared Genser is Founder of Freedom Now, a nonprofit organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide. Through focused legal, political and public relations advocacy efforts, Genser has mobilized teams of lawyers, activists, students, NGOs, and media to engage with him in a critical mass of global advocacy for prisoners of conscience. He has helped secure the release of numerous prisoners of conscience, including Ayub Masih, a Pakistani Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan; Dr. Yang Jianli, a former Tiananmen Square activist and scholar; and Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leading democracy activist in the Arab world. In addition, Genser has inspired and led global coalitions that have focused international attention on the world's most repressive regimes. These efforts have resulted in Burma becoming a permanent agenda item for the U.N. Security Council for the first time, and in applying the new legal doctrine of the "responsibility to protect" to North Korea for its commission of crimes against humanity against its own people.
Genser is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, a law firm whose practice focuses on public international law, human rights, and corporate social responsibility. Previously, he was a partner in the government affairs practice of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Among his pro bono human rights clients have been former Czech Republic President Václav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Desmond Tutu, and Elie Wiesel.
In 2009, he was named by the National Law Journal as one of "40 Under 40: Washington's Rising Stars." Genser has taught semester-long classes about the UN Security Council at Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania law schools. He was a Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy in 2006-2007 and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Jared Genser holds a B.S. from Cornell University, a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School. He has published op-eds on human rights topics in such publications as The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, The Nation (Bangkok), The Star (Johannesburg), and The Independent (London), among others. His new book, The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in our Times, co-edited with Irwin Cotler, was recently published by Oxford University Press. In addition, he has testified before the U.S. Congress and numerous foreign parliaments around the world. Genser lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife and two children and continues to inspire others through his words, his actions, and his perseverance.
