Rêz Gardî

Rêz Gardi is a co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies. She is an international human rights lawyer, advocate, and a trailblazer in the global refugee leadership movement. Born stateless and as a refugee in Pakistan to survivors of genocide, Rêz turned her challenging start into a lifelong mission of advocating for others. She became New Zealand’s first female Kurdish lawyer and the first Kurd to graduate from Harvard Law School, where she earned a Master of Laws as a Fulbright Scholar.

Rêz is the Co-Managing Director for Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT), a global refugee-led organisation pushing for more effective refugee responses worldwide. R-SEAT challenges the top-down approach to refugee governance by advocating for refugee co-leadership in global decision-making. She is also the founder of Empower, a refugee youth-led organisation focused on increasing access to education for refugee youth.

Her past roles include working for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, as a litigator at one of New Zealand’s preeminent law firms, as a lecturer on international law and human rights, and most recently serving as a Harvard Human Rights Fellow in Iraq, building cases for the prosecution of ISIS for their genocidal campaign against the Yezidis, including mass executions, kidnapping, torture, sexual violence, and other human rights abuses.

Rêz has a wealth of experience advocating for the rights of refugee at global fora. She represented New Zealand in the first ever Global Refugee Youth Consultations in Geneva and was one of the founding members of the Global Youth Advisory Council to the UNHCR. In 2020 she helped established the Refugee Steering Group for the UNHCR Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement.

She serves on UNHCR’s Advisory Board and as an expert for the Woodrow Wilson Center's Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative.

Contact: rez.gardi@auckland.ac.nz