Nani Jansen Reventlow is an author and award-winning human rights lawyer specialised in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology.

Nani is the founder of Systemic Justice, an organisation that seeks to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social and economic justice. Nani has an extensive background in promoting human rights in the digital context and in defending journalists and activists in some of the most repressive environments in the world. She previously founded and built the Digital Freedom Fund, which supports digital rights litigation. There, she initiated a decolonising process for the digital rights field in Europe.

Politico named her one of society’s great visionary tech leaders for her work on digital human rights. She has also been honoured with awards from Harvard, Oxford and Columbia Universities.

Nani has overseen litigation worldwide on issues including freedom of expression, fair trial, torture and arbitrary detention, leading or advising on cases before a multitude of national courts, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, the East African Court of Justice, the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Nani is an Adjunct Professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. She has developed and delivered training sessions on freedom of expression and human rights litigation strategy to dozens of lawyers worldwide.

Professional Memberships

Nani is associated with world-class universities and institutions and has served on a variety of international boards, committees and councils.

Nani has been an Ashoka fellow since 2021. She is a member of the Human Rights Watch Policy Committee and Human Rights Watch Netherlands Committee. Nani is also part of the Advisory Council of Climate Rights International.

In 2024, Nani was appointed to the Human Rights Committee of the Advisory Council on International Affairs in the Netherlands.

Publications

Nani is the author of Radical justice, a collection of 9 essays on how to build a better world, and the lead editor of Intersectionality and Human Rights: Reimagining European Court of Human Rights Judgments.

Nani’s scholarly writing and opinion pieces on issues in international law, human rights, data protection and international arbitration have been published around the world.