Hubert Masoka Tshiswaka

Hubert Masoka Tshiswaka has served as a human rights defender since 1996. He is the General Director of the Institut de Recherche en Droits Humains (IRDH), a private institution of research and training on human rights founded in 2014. In 2004, Tshiswaka co-founded Action contre l’impunité pour les droits humains, an NGO based in Lubumbashi that works to promote corporate responsibility in the Katanga mining areas. Between 1996 and 2004, he was the President of ASADHO/Katanga, a community-based human rights NGO. Following his participation in HRAP, Tshiswaka served as the DRC Country Director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. He holds the LLM from Witwatersrand University.

When asked in 2018 about the greatest benefit of HRAP, he writes: “With a backward look, years after HRAP, I’m convinced that the program impacted me a lot. IRDH is a result of my passage at Columbia where I learned how to give the best of myself to my community. The global network of alumni has been an incredible resource, providing an opportunity to learn and share experiences of working on common global human rights agenda. I still keep contact with friends in Indonesia, China, Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, USA, and Italy.”

—Article composed by Allison Tamer, Program Assistant, April 2013

—Updated by Claire Kozik, Program Assistant, Summer 2018