Makau W. Mutua

Makau W. Mutua (born 1958) is a Kenyan-American professor of law. In December 2014, Mutua stepped down as Dean of the University at Buffalo Law School after a controversial 7 year-term.^[1] He still remains a SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at the Law School. He was the first professor in the history of the Law School to be named SUNY Distinguished Professor.^[2] He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[3] In October 2015, he joined the World Bank in Washington D.C to work on governance and human rights. In December 2012, Mutua was appointed to a four-year term on the recommendation of the Obama Administration to the Board of Advisors of the International Development Law Organization or IDLO which is based in Rome, Italy.^[4]

In July 2013, he was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York to the Moreland commission to Investigate Public Corruption.^[5] In that role, was appointed – as did all the other commissioners – to the rank of Deputy Attorney General by New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

Mutua was ranked No. 110 by Buffalo Business First in the Power 200 most influential people in 2013 in Western New York.^[6] In March 2012, he was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to a three-year term to the board of directors of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation.^[7] In April 2011, he was appointed to a three-year term by Governor Andrew Cuomo to the New York State Judicial Screening Committee for the Fourth Department.^[8] In May 2010, he became a member of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, the first Greek-letter society founded by African-American men in the United States. Mutua has been named several times as among the most influential black lawyers and educators in the United States.^[9]

In 2003, he was appointed by Kenya's President Kibaki to chair a task force that eventually led to the establishment of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission in 2008.^[10]

Biography

Early life and education

Mutua was born in 1958 in Kenya, the second of seven children. He received secondary education at Kitui High School and Alliance High School. An excellent student throughout his life, he gained attention in other ways while attending the University of Nairobi with his vocal opposition to the national government. He was arrested in May 1981 for his dissent and was only released after fasting in a hunger strike for several days.^[11] He eventually found his way to Tanzania where he applied for United Nations refugee status. He earned a Masters in Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, ultimately attending Harvard Law School in 1984. There he earned an LLM in 1985 and an SJD in 1987.^[12]

Legal and academic career

After graduation from Harvard, he worked for White & Case, a New York City law firm, but later pursued his dreams of human rights advocacy with his work at Human Rights First, then known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. In 1991, he returned to Harvard where he became the Associate Director of the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. In 1996, he joined the University at Buffalo Law School faculty. In December 2007, he was appointed Interim Dean at the University at Buffalo Law School and was named the permanent Dean in May 2008. Mutua has lectured extensively abroad and at leading universities in the world where he has served as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, the University of Iowa College of Law, the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, the University of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, among others.^[12][13] He was elected Vice President of the American Society of International Law from 2011-2013 after serving as its Executive Council from 2007-2010.^[14] He was the co-chair of the 2000 Annual meeting of the ASIL. http://web2.law.buffalo.edu/links/02-2012/mutua.asp. He sits on the boards of scholarly journals and NGOs. He was a founder and serves as Chairman of the Nairobi-based Kenya Human Rights Commission, regarded as a leading human rights NGO in the world.^[15] He has received several academic accolades and distinctions. In 2007, he gave the Abiola Lecture, the signature keynote address at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, the leading Africana Studies academic association in the world.^[16][17] In April 2015, Mutua received the Distinguished Africanist award from the NYASA (New York African Studies Association), the association's highest honor.^[18] Mutua is regarded as one of the leading academics in human rights and international law.^[19] He has authored several books and dozens of scholarly articles in law journals and other publications.^[12] He is a top law author on SSRN, the Social Science Research Network.^[20] His latest book, Human Rights Standards: Hegemony, Law, and Politics is scheduled for release by SUNY Press in February 2016.^[21] Mutua is one of the eminent scholars and thinkers in the movement known as TWAIL, or Third World Approaches to International Law.^[22][23]

On September 24, 2014, Mutua announced that he was stepping down following a controversial 7-year term as Dean amid allegations of perjury and mismanagement of the school. "The dean’s critics, and they are numerous, include some of the school’s most highly regarded faculty members. They claim Mutua’s management style divided the school at a time of great economic turmoil. Applications and enrollment at UB Law, like at most law schools across the country, are down dramatically, and the school is going through a downsizing of both faculty and students. Critics say Mutua, who came from within the ranks of the faculty, arrived in the dean’s office with a “divide and rule” philosophy that placed a priority on loyalty and penalized critics while rewarding allies." ^[24]

After he left the Dean's Office, he was granted a three-semester sabbatical at his full pay. Mutua is working as a human rights adviser for World Bank, an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries. Such consultants in Washington, D.C., where Mutua’s Twitter account shows he spends most of his time, make an average salary of $90,000. The campus newspaper reported that "the university is still paying the former law school dean his full salary – a salary that nears $300,000 - despite being away from the school and taking on outside work." ^[25]

Kenya government and media activities

In 2003, while on sabbatical in Kenya, he was appointed by the Government of President Mwai Kibaki Chair of the Task Force on the Establishment of a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission which recommended a truth commission for Kenya. He was also a Delegate in 2003 to the Kenya National Constitutional Conference, which produced a contested draft constitution for Kenya.^[26] In 2006, he was legal counsel to John Githongo, the former Kenyan anti-corruption czar who exposed the Anglo Leasing scams in the Kibaki Government.^[27]

In a seven-year period, Mutua became the leading and most popular columnist for the Sunday Nation, one of the two the main newspapers in East and Central Africa. In September 2013, he departed the Sunday Nation and joined the Standard on Sunday – the Sunday Nation's chief competitor.^[28]

Application to be Kenya's Chief Justice

Following the early retirement of Dr. Willy Mutunga from the Office of Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court of Kenya in June 2016, Mutua was among the 10 people who applied for the job in response to the vacancy announcement by the Judicial Service Commission.^[29]

When the Commission drew the short list of applicants who were to be interviewed for the job, Mutua's name was conspicuously and surprisingly missing from the list, despite his strong credentials.^[30] A civil society organization filed a case at the Constitutional Court questioning the criteria used in the shortlisting, and demanding that applicants who met the constitutional requirements be interviewed.

It emerged in the litigation that Mutua had not been shortlisted since he had not obtained a tax clearance from the Kenya Revenue Authority since he had reportedly not met his tax obligations in Kenya. The Constitutional Court held that persons who meet the constitutional threshold for the office must be interviewed and given the chance to explain why they did not get clearances.^[31]

Following this case, Mutua and four other applicants who had been left out of the shortlist were invited to interview for the job.

During the interview, the Judicial Service Commission put him to task over tweets he had made following the contested election of Uhuru Kenyatta as President of Kenya in March 2013.^[32] In a tweet published shortly after the 2013 general election, Mutua indicated that he would not recognize Uhuru Kenyatta as President due to the circumstances under which he was declared the winner of the poll. Mutua stuck to his position, and referred to President Kenyatta as Mr. Kenyatta throughout the interview.

When the interviews ended, the Commission announced that it had settled on Kenyan Court of Appeal Judge David Maraga as the nominee for the Office of Chief Justice. Mutua was ranked third in the interviews.^[33][34]

Pan-Africanism

In 1994, Mutua offered up an idea for how to reorganize Africa to construct 15 sustainable states from the 55 semi-viable states that existed at the time. He theorized this new ideal for the organization of Africa as a result of what he believed were the "consequences of the failed postcolonial state are so destructive that radical solutions must now be contemplated to avert the wholesale destruction of groups of the African people".^[35] Mutua decided that the way in which the new states would be created would be by looking at ethnic similarities, cultural homogeneity, and economic viability. The new states that Mutua theorized included the Republic of Kusini, a new Egypt, Nubia, a new Mali, a new Somalia, a new Congo, a new Ghana, a new Benin, a new Libya, a Sahara state, Kisiwani, a new state made up of a collection of islands, and the current states of Angola and Algeria would remain the same.

Awards and Honors

^[36]

• Distinguished Africanist Award, New York African Studies Association, 40th Annual Conference, Union College/Albany Law School, New York, April 4, 2015.
• Education Award, City of Buffalo [Mayor Byron W. Brown], Black History Month [Civil Rights in America: 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act], February 11, 2014.
• Business First Power 250 [250 Most Influential People in Western New York], Buffalo Business First, Ranked at No. 91, February 6, 2014.
• 2014 Lawyers of Color Third Annual Power List, February 2014.
• Named to 2103 Business First Western New York Legal Elite, Buffalo Business First, September 2013, see http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/buffalolawjournal/2013/09/introd ucing-the-first-members-of-our.html.
• Top 100 Most Influential People in Kenya [ranked at 78], see http://trulykenyan.com/top-100-kenyans/.
• Business First Power 200 [200 Most Influential People in Western New York], Buffalo Business First, February 8, 2013
• Mwongozi (Leadership) Award, Kenya National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, December 15, 2012, Nairobi, Kenya
• Named to the 2012, 2013 100 Most Influential Black Lawyers in the Nation, The Power 100 Special Edition, On Being a Black Lawyer (OBABL), See http://www.obabl.com/power100/; http://www.onbeingablacklawyer.com/wordpress/the-power-100- 2013honoreesannounced
• Member, SUNY Distinguished Academy [founded in 2012]
• 2010 Who Is Who in Law, Buffalo Business First and Buffalo Law Journal
• Trailblazer Award, Rochester Black Bar Association, October 9, 2009, Rochester, New York
• SADOO Enterprises, Inc., African Schools Project, Distinguished Citizen Award, October 19, 2008, Buffalo, New York
• Mayor, City of Buffalo, Executive Chamber Proclamation – October 19, 2008 declared Dean Makau Mutua Day, October 19, 2008, Buffalo, New York.
• President’s Award, Minority Bar Association of Western New York, September 18, 2008, Buffalo, New York.
• Mayor, City of Buffalo, Executive Chamber Proclamation – September 9, 2008 declared Makau W. Mutua Day, September 9, 2008, Buffalo, New York.
• Minority Bar Association of Western New York, Welcome Award, September 9, 2008.
• The 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Award [For Outstanding Service to the University and the Community by a Non-Alumnus], University at Buffalo Law Alumni Association, May 1, 2008.
• Bashorun M. K. O. Abiola Lecture Award, African Studies Association, 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting, New York, New York, October 2007.
• 2007 Faculty Award [Outstanding Teacher Award], SUNY Buffalo Law School, May 2007.
• “The Ideology of Human Rights, 36 Va. J. Int’l L. 589 (1996), selected for inclusion in Special Issue: Forty Years of Scholarship: Excerpts From Articles in the Virginia Journal of International Law that Charted New Paths and Captured Historic Moments, 40 Va. J. Int’l L. 849, 949-951 (2000).
• Prominent Refugee, Gallery of Prominent Refugees, 50th of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees [named among 100 others as a Prominent Refugee], see [http://www.unhcr-50.org/gallery/igallery.html or www.unhcr- 50.org/gallery/mutua.html www.unhcr-50.org/gallery/igallery.html or www.unhcr- 50.org/gallery/mutua.html].
• Marshall, SUNY-Buffalo Law School Commencement, 2002, 2001. Elected by Students to be Faculty Commencement Speaker (“Why Law School?”), SUNY-Buffalo Law School Commencement, 1999.
• Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Faculty Award, SUNY Buffalo, February 1998. 7 Jacob D. Hyman Award, SUNY Buffalo Law School, April 1998.

Selected works

• Human Rights Standards: Hegemony, Law, and Politics. SUNY Press. March 2016 ISBN 978-1-4384-5939-4
• Kenya's Quest For Democracy: Taming Leviathan (Challenge and Change in African Politics). L. Rienner Publishers. 30 April 2008 ISBN 1-58826-590-0
• Human Rights NGOs in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions. University of Pennsylvania Press. 12 September 2008 ISBN 978-0-8122-4112-9
• Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique. University of Pennsylvania Press. 10 November 2008 ISBN 0-8122-2049-8
• "Savages, victims, and saviors: the metaphor of human rights". Harvard International Law Journal. 42 (1): 201–45. 2001. 
• Zaire: Repression As Policy (with Peter Rosenblum), New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1990.
• “Mazrui and Barkan: A Tribute,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies (2016).

References