Manfred Nowak

Who is Manfred Nowak?

Manfred Nowak is an Austrian human rights lawyer.

Nowak was a student of Felix Ermacora, and cooperated with him until Ermacora's death in 1995. They co-founded the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte in 1992. Currently he is Scientific Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte. Nowak is also a visiting professor at American University Washington College of Law's Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Nowak was a member of the Austrian delegation to United Nations Commission on Human Rights 1986–1993. From 1987 to 1989 he was director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights at the Utrecht University.

Nowak was one of the judges of the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina between March 1996 and December 2003. He was also the vice president of the Chamber between December 1997 and December 1998.

From 2004 to October 2010 Nowak was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, and was one of the five authors of a United Nations report on the detention of captives at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2005 Nowak visited China, claiming that torture remained "widespread" there.