Emily Schaeffer Omer-Manis a corporate accountability and Business and Human Rights expert, specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Israeli military and administrative law, with two decades of experience litigating in defense of Palestinian human rights before Israeli, foreign, and international tribunals. 

From 2006-2017, she served as staff attorney, and later managing attorney, at the Michael Sfard Law Office in Tel Aviv. During her tenure, she argued landmark cases before the Israeli Supreme Court and served as legal counsel to NGOs, including: Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence, Who Profits, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al-Haq, and Human Rights Watch. She has represented over 500 Palestinian victims of crimes committed by Israeli security forces as well as scores of Palestinian and foreign experts and human rights practitioners denied entry to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. She has been called as an expert on Israel’s military occupation before the UN Security Council, the UN Committee on Palestine, the Russell Tribunal, as well as the Israeli Military Advocate General and the Israeli Attorney General. Emily has authored several academic articles and reports, and her opinion pieces have been published in the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Policy, Haaretz, +972 Magazine, and the Jerusalem Post. She is an adjunct professor of human rights law at American University and a senior legal consultant for LexCollective. She holds a B.A. with Distinction in Political Science from Goucher College and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law School. She is licensed to practice law in Washington, D.C., California, and Israel. In 2009, Emily was selected as one of Ode Magazine’s 25 Intelligent Optimists; in 2020 she received the IIE Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East; and she was a 2021 Echoing Green Finalist for her founding of Global Echo.