Shannon Raj Singh

March 15, 2023–March 14, 2024

Shannon Raj Singh is an international criminal lawyer with expertise in the intersection of technology and mass atrocities. Until November 2022, she was Human Rights Counsel and Acting Head of Human Rights at Twitter, where she advised on urgent risks related to the use of the platform in crisis and conflict situations such as Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. She was closely involved with the company's development of crisis response protocols, and opportunities to better protect vulnerable groups, such as journalists, aid workers, and human rights activists. 

Previously, Shannon was practicing international criminal law at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague. She has also worked with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and as a Visiting Fellow of Practice at Oxford University, where she researched States’ legal obligations to prevent atrocity crimes. She is currently Co-Chair of the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association, and a Special Advisor on Social Media and Conflict to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. 

Fellowship Project

Shannon Raj Singh worked with the Simon-Skjodt Center to explore the potential of social media to contribute to the reduction of mass atrocity risks. Her project examined the specific opportunities and tools presented by social media to counter atrocity risk dynamics, both in moments of imminent risk as well as upstream, and the trade-offs and considerations related to those decisions. Her report, "Leveraging Social Media for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention: Understanding the Digital Toolbox" explores how tools deployed or developed by social media companies can help protect vulnerable civilian populations at risk of mass atrocities and degrade potential perpetrators' capacity to commit these crimes.