Jessica Neuwirth awarded with the Legion of Honor by France on October 5th, 2021 [fr]

Jessica Neuwirth is an American women’s rights lawyer and activist.

Ms. Neuwirth holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree in History from Yale University. She has held legal positions with Amnesty International, the Wall Street law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She also served as a special consultant on sexual violence at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, leading to the recognition of rape as a form of genocide. Most recently, she led the legal team that prepared the Sierra Leone Supreme Court’s judgment against former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Jessica Neuwirth was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and is currently the Rita E. Hauser Director of the Human Rights Program of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, Hunter College, NYC.

In 1992, her experience with Amnesty International led her to found Equality Now, an international organization that plays a key role in the fight against violence against women and gender discrimination. In 2012, Equality Now inspired the adoption by the United Nations of a resolution to eliminate female genital mutilation.

Jessica Neuwirth is also the founder and director of the Donor Direct Action Fund for Women, which aims to address the gender imbalance in international philanthropy by connecting individual donors with women-led organizations. Since its inception in 2011, the fund has raised over $4 million to support women’s rights organizations around the world.

In addition, Neuwirth is the founder and co-chair of the new Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) coalition. The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution introduced in the 1920s to ensure that equal rights for women and men are enshrined in the Constitution. In 1972, the U.S. Congress voted in favor of the ERA, but the amendment could not be written into the Constitution due to a lack of ratification by enough states. Since 2017, the last 3 states needed for ratification have come on board, and only the Senate approval is missing. The ERA coalition includes over 100 local and national organizations and is working closely with elected officials to identify actions that could lead to passage of this amendment. As part of this coalition, in 2015, Jessica Neuwirth wrote the book Equal Means Equal, Why the Time for the ERA is Now.

Journalist and feminist activist Gloria Steinem as well as Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney attended the ceremony.

Au nom du Président de la République et en vertu des pouvoirs qui me sont conférés, je vous fais Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. - Jérémie Robert, Consul Général de France à New York.