Nicholas Opiyo

Director, human rights

Nicholas Opiyo is a world-renowned and award-winning human rights attorney who advocates for civil liberties, democracy, and justice in Uganda, across Africa, and beyond. He grew up in Gulu, Northern Uganda, at the height of the deadly conflict between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), trekking long distances to avoid abduction by the LRA. The conflict is known for extreme brutality meted out by both government and rebel forces, which have abducted thousands of civilians—including Opiyo’s sister, who was captive for several years before escaping—to serve as soldiers, laborers, or sex slaves. After attending law school, Opiyo channeled his childhood experiences into a passion for standing up for society’s most vulnerable and marginalized and defending human rights for all.

Between 2013 and early 2025, Nicholas founded and served as the Executive Director and Lead Attorney at Chapter Four Uganda, a civil rights charity working to defend civil liberties. He has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for African Studies, Stanford University, CA, USA, and the Global Health Program at the University of San Francisco (UCSF), California, USA. Nicholas also served as the Board Chair of Action Aid Uganda until 2020. He was a member of the Human Rights Advisory Board BENETECH, a Silicon Valley human rights and tech company based in Palo Alto, California, among other roles. Until March 2017, Nicholas was a member of the Team of Experts to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and Association. He is the recipient of the Human Rights Tulip Prize from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2021), the German Africa Prize (2017), the European Union Parliament Sakharov Fellows Prize (2016), and the Voices for Justice Award from Human Rights Watch (2015). In 2021-2022, Nicholas served as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School's Scholars At-Risk program, and in 2022-23, he was an LL.M. Human Rights Fellow at Columbia Law’s Human Rights Institute.