Emerson Sykes
Legal Associate - Africa
Washington, D.C. (ICNL Headquarters)
Emerson Sykes is the Legal Associate for Africa programs at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). Prior to joining ICNL in February 2013, Mr. Sykes served as Assistant General Counsel to the New York City Council. He was also the Council Parliamentarian and Counsel to the Rules, Privileges and Elections Committee. Mr. Sykes has previously worked with a variety of government entities and civil society groups across Africa. In 2011, he served as Senior Policy Fellow in the Office of Hon. Kwaku Agyenim-Boateng, Member of Parliament for the Berekum Constituency in Ghana.
Mr. Sykes holds a Juris Doctorate (JD) from New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar for Public Interest Law, and a Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. While in law school, he interned with the Open Society Justice Initiative and in 2011 he did clinical work with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice in Haiti. During the summer of 2009, Mr. Sykes interned with Search for Common Ground in Bukavu, DR Congo revamping their monitoring and evaluation regimes for security sector reform projects aimed at decreasing impunity for human rights abuses committed by the Congolese army and national police. In 2008, Mr. Sykes interned in the Liberian Ministry of Justice in the Economic Affairs division where he drafted extractive industry contracts, participated in the comprehensive review of the Revenue Code, and drafted various pieces of legislation.
Prior to graduate and law school, Mr. Sykes conducted foreign policy research and analysis for The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank in New York City. He also worked for the National Democratic Institute’s Central and West Africa Team, primarily on the Liberia and Nigeria programs. Mr. Sykes holds a Bachelor’s degree (BA) in Political Science from Stanford University where he minored in African History and French and studied abroad in Paris and at Oxford.