Bronx, NY, Feb. 3, 2022 – Sushil Raj has joined WCS as the Executive Director of the Rights & Communities Program, bringing to the position more than 20 years of social justice and human rights experience.

WCS’s Rights & Communities Program is the organization’s flagship endeavor to ensure that conservation efforts deliver on the mission of saving wildlife and wild places in ways that respect, protect, and promote the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Across the planet, WCS collaborates with Indigenous Peoples and local communities to achieve a shared vision for a more secure and resilient future, where wildlife remains a visible, thriving, and culturally valued part of the wild places where its partners live and WCS works. The WCS Rights & Communities program ensures that all staff have the knowledge and skills needed, and sufficient resources available, to respectfully and effectively work with Indigenous Peoples and local communities in support of community-led or co-managed conservation programs.

Raj comes to WCS with a wealth of practical experience designing and implementing programs that reflect WCS’s commitment to respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. He has worked extensively in international affairs with specific expertise in Indigenous Peoples and minority rights, social justice, conflict prevention, mediation, as well as on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Some of his previous experiences were with the World Food Program USA; The Fund for Global Human Rights; the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (based in Geneva, Kathmandu, and New York); the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; the UN Stabilization Organization in the Democratic Republic of Congo based in Kinshasa; the Asia Foundation in New Delhi; and the Ford Foundation. He also provided technical and fundraising assistance to various organizations.

Raj was recently appointed to serve as the Asia Pacific Member of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a Special Rapporteur mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council. He also volunteers his time mediating disputes through the New York Peace Institute and serves on its Board of Directors.

Raj has a BA (hons) in Philosophy from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi; a postgraduate Diploma in Public International Law from the Indian Academy of International Law and Diplomacy; an MA in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University; and an MSc in Management of International Public Service Organizations from the New York University Wagner School of Public Service.

###