Dr Simon Adams is an international human rights leader of significant impact. Based in New York, he is currently the President and CEO of the Centre for Victims of Torture, the world’s largest agency that treats survivors and advocates for an end to torture worldwide. Simon’s team is positioned all over the world, with offices in the United States, Jordan, Syria, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
From 2011 to 2021, Simon served as Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. There, he led advocacy at the United Nations and with international governments to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In 2019, Simon worked with the Justice Minister of The Gambia in a historic case to take Myanmar to the International Court of Justice for violating the Genocide Convention—a precedent that was recently used by South Africa to bring Israel to the ICJ for its conduct in Gaza.
Simon has worked extensively with human rights defenders around the world, including in Syria and other conflict zones. Between 1994 and 2002 Simon worked with former IRA prisoners in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. He is also a former member of the international anti-apartheid movement and of the African National Congress in South Africa.
Born and raised in New Zealand, Simon studied at the University of Witswatersrand in South Africa and at the University of New South Wales in Australia, where he received his PhD. His senior academic appointments include serving as Pro Vice Chancellor (International Engagement) at Monash University, and Vice President of its South African campus. Before then, was the foundation Executive Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
Simon is the author of five books, including Mass Atrocities, the Responsibility to Protect and the Future of Human Rights, (Routledge, 2021). He has also written for the New York Times, The Australian, News24 (South Africa), O Estado de S. Paulo (Brazil), Los Angeles Times and many other publications. Simon regularly appears as an expert commentator on CNN, Al-Jazeera, BBC World News, Deutsche Welle News, China Global Television Network and numerous other international media.
