Directories

Akilah Jenga Kinnison

Akilah Kinnison received her B.A. from Davidson College, where she was a religion and political science double major. Prior law school, she worked as a researcher and editor in the field of Latin American policy studies, co-authoring several publications for the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Akilah then attended the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law where she participated in the world-renowned Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program (IPLP).

After graduating magna cum laude with a certificate in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy in 2012, Akilah received an LL.M. in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy with a concentration in human rights in 2013. She was a research assistant for Prof. Robert A. Williams, Jr. and a member of the Arizona Law Review, where she won an award for her student note Indigenous Consent: Rethinking U.S. Consultation Policies in Light of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Akilah was also the recipient of an International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award, a Constitutional Law Mentor, and a Supreme Court Teaching Fellow.

Akilah has participated in high-profile international human rights cases, including the Western Shoshone case and the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group case, which is currently pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. While with IPLP, she also had the opportunity to contribute to the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Akilah now works as an independent contractor and consultant in the fields of international human rights and indigenous peoples’ law.