Richard A. Wilson

Gladstein Chair of Human Rights and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Law and Anthropology

Education/Professional Certification

PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science
BSc Econ, London School of Economics and Political Science

Expertise

Human Rights, International Criminal Tribunals, Post Conflict Justice

Biography

Richard Ashby Wilson is the Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Anthropology and Gladstein Chair of Human Rights and was the founding director of the Human Rights Institute at UConn. Wilson is a scholar of human rights, transitional justice, and freedom of expression, and he has recently taught courses in “Human Rights and Post-Conflict Justice,” “Propaganda, Disinformation, and Hate Speech,” and a “Hate Crimes Practicum.”

Wilson is the author or editor of 11 books on international human rights, humanitarianism, truth and reconciliation commissions, and international criminal tribunals. He wrote the definitive ethnographic study of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (2001). His book on historical narratives at international criminal tribunals Writing History in International Criminal Trials (2011) was selected by Choice as an “Outstanding Academic Title” in the law category. His latest book, Incitement On Trial: Prosecuting International Speech Crimes (2017), explains why international criminal tribunals struggle to convict individuals for inciting speech. His work has been translated into Chinese, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Having received his BSc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, Professor Wilson held full-time faculty positions at the Universities of Essex and Sussex, as well as visiting professorships at the Free University-Amsterdam, University of Oslo, the New School for Social Research, and the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has held prestigious fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

He is committed to engaged scholarship that advances civil rights and human rights in the United States and worldwide. He previously served as Chair of the Connecticut State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was appointed in 2021 by the governor of the state of Connecticut to the Hate Crimes Advisory Council that recommends new measures to combat hate crimes in the state. He serves on the Scientific Oversight Board of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, and the international advisory boards of Human Rights Quarterly and The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He has a regularly media presence and has published articles in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.