Dr. Leo Mukosi – CWIS Scholar and Intern Appointed African Commission Expert Member

Dr. Leo Mukosi, is a former intern and our current colleague at the Center for World Indigenous Studies appointed on May 23rd this year as an Expert Member for Southern Africa in the African Union‘s African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), Working Group on Indigenous Populations at the 75th Session of the Commission held in Banjul, The Gambia. Mukosi is appointed for a two-year term running to May 2025 as the Expert Member for South Africa. According to the Commission’s resolution appointing Mukosi the responsibility of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations is “to protect vulnerable groups in Africa from human rights violations, including indigenous populations/communities and minority groups, who are currently some of the most vulnerable groups exposed to serious violations of human rights in Africa.

Leo began serving as a CWIS intern and consultant contributing to several scholarly and policy initiatives conducted by the Center for World Indigenous Studies between 2020 and 2023.  While consulting at the Center conducted research on the harmonizing of the T’it’get land-code with the T’it’get Constitution (T’it’get is a band of the St’at’imc Nation located in Canada’s British Columbia province). He earlier worked as an intern to help develop the Congress of Nations and States sponsored by CWIS, and Dr. Mukosi advised on the development of the Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal coordinated by the Center under the sponsorship of the Ezidikhan Nation government located in northern Iraq.

When he joined the Center for World Indigenous Studies, Leo was a doctoral candidate in the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona College of Law. He formerly interned with the Michigan Indian Legal Services and in the summer of 2017, he was awarded an “externship” from Michigan State University traveling to Kenya to work as a Children’s Rights Fellow. Originally growing up in his native Zimbabwe, Dr. Mukosi’s research focused on Indigenous peoples’ data sovereignty as an international human right, and focused on operationalizing the right at the domestic level in countries with Indigenous populations. He is a prolific author writing scholarly articles for the American Indian Journal, the Notre Dame Journal of International and Comparative Law, the Fourth World Journal, and the San Diego International Law Journal.

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