Clara Usiskin

Clara Usiskin is a human rights investigator, legal researcher, and qualified solicitor with extensive experience in research, advocacy, and accountability work focused on human rights and state power, particularly in the East and Horn of Africa. She studied Philosophy and Law at the University of Sussex and qualified as a solicitor in the United Kingdom. Clara previously served as a National Security Fellow at the Open Society Justice Initiative and as Deputy Director of the Secret Prisons team at Reprieve, where she contributed to investigations and research on detention, surveillance, and state accountability. She is also the author of America’s Covert War in East Africa. As an Affiliate and Legal Research Advisor to the Gender and Justice Unit (GJU), Clara supports the organisation’s growing body of legal and policy research, with a particular focus on constitutional law, women’s rights, and gender justice. Her work contributes to GJU’s strategic goal of generating locally grounded research and strengthening knowledge production on gender justice issues in Malawi and across the region. She is also supporting the development of partnerships with university law clinics and contributing to the strengthening of MalawiLII and GJU’s wider legal knowledge repository, helping expand public access to legal information, research, and jurisprudence.