Washington Lawyer - March/April 2020 - 42

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

FATEMAH ALBADER

Inspires to Break the Norm

international lawyers. "You never know when
you'll need the [D.C. Bar] license to practice in
some other place around the globe."

By John Murph

uring a recent lecture in
the Netherlands, Kuwait
International Law School
assistant professor Fatemah Albader
realized that she and other
professional women invited to
speak on behalf of women's rights
in the Persian Gulf first had to put
some misconceptions to rest.

In the legal profession, for instance, Albader says
Kuwaiti women have made some progress. For
the longest time women were barred from
becoming prosecutors or judges, but in
November 2019 Kuwait's justice ministry was set
to appoint the country's first women judges
- six years after allowing women to apply to
become prosecutors, the path to judgeships.
"We are advancing. I want women lawyers to
realize that they can have some independence
even while being in Kuwait," Albader says.
"Everybody in our school looks at going to the
United States as the American Dream. The first
thing they all want to talk about is my life in
America. So, I want them to realize that they can
have that life in Kuwait as well. They just have to
push for it."
Albader, 29, first came to the United States in
2009, enrolling at the University of Florida
where she earned a dual degree in public relations and political science in 2014. The following
year she worked as a research and development
intern at the United Nations Development

42 WASHINGTON LAWYER

Albader says the annual Jessup competition
- the world's oldest and largest, drawing participants from some 700 law schools in 100
countries and jurisdictions - enhances her
legal education because it forces her to engage
in unfamiliar territory within the expansive field
of international law. Albader is also a founding
member of ILSA's All Rise Society, which serves
as the "backbone of the Jessup competition."

Courtesy of Fatemah Albader

"People still think we do not have as many rights
as we do," she says. "They look at what's going on
in Saudi Arabia, and they see that as being true
about all of the Middle East. In the past, Saudi
Arabian women couldn't drive. They thought that
was true throughout the Middle East."

When Albader decided to pursue a legal career,
she set her sights on international law, with
early aspirations of working for the United
Nations. But in law school she started writing
papers for the Emory International Law Review,
putting her on the academic path. At the
Kuwait International Law School, Albader
teaches public international law and introduction to legal systems. She also has coached for
the International Law Student Association's
(ILSA) Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot
Court Competition in Washington, D.C., and
served as a judge at its 2018 competition.

MARCH/APRIL 2020

Programme, conducting research on women's
empowerment, rights of the disabled, rights of
the child, and drug use and trafficking.
She then went on to study law at Emory
University in Atlanta, graduating in 2017. For
Kuwaitis who come to the United States to
study, this was an unusual decision. Instead of a
JD, many typically pursue a master of laws in
taxation or a doctor of juridical science degree.
After graduating from Emory with honors,
Albader extended her stay in the United States
by doing an optional practical training before
taking the D.C. Bar exam in 2018. To her knowledge, Albader says she is likely the first Kuwaiti
to have passed the exam.
"I wanted to join a bar association with more of
an international representation," she says, citing
Bar opportunities to connect with other

Lately, Albader has focused her research and
writing on the intersection between surveillance technology and human rights, submitting
a provocative paper, "The Digital War on Human
Rights, Guilty Until Proven Innocent," to the
Minnesota Journal of International Law (scheduled for publication later in 2020).
"I've been working on the best way we can
provide a framework to allow us to reconcile
human rights with national security principles,"
she explains. Albader's other published works
include "Breaking the Perceptions of Islamic
Monolithism" (University of Miami International
and Comparative Law Review, 2019) and "Islamic
Law and the Right to Armed Jihad" (Indonesian
Journal of International & Comparative Law, 2018).
For "Digital War," Albader investigated the
United Kingdom's recent update of its CounterTerrorism and Border Security Act, which, she
argues, violates several human rights principles.
"The House of Lords was able to pass a new
continued on page 53

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