Isa Mirza advises governments, corporations, nonprofits and advocacy coalitions on the advancement of human rights.
A member of Foley Hoag’s Global Business and Human Rights Practice since 2011, Isa counsels clients on ways to eliminate human rights-based harms by adhering to internationally recognized laws and principles, protecting the rights of vulnerable communities and indigenous peoples, promoting fundamental worker freedoms and eradicating modern slavery in supply chains.
Isa works closely with clients to develop policies and practices based on the International Bill of Human Rights, the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, the Conventions of the International Labour Organization, the U.S. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Isa regularly conducts human rights impact assessments and investigations in multiple languages and has carried out fieldwork research in many countries across the globe, including most recently Colombia, Peru, Algeria, Iraq and India.
A specialist in U.S. federal appropriations law and the congressional legislative process, Isa also has a decade of experience guiding clients in successful efforts to strengthen human rights protections and fund humanitarian programs through the appropriation and disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance. As part of this work, he represents clients before Congress and the Department of State.
Isa maintains an extensive and highly active pro bono practice. His pro bono work is especially focused on racial equity, the rights of residents in the District of Columbia who are returning from incarceration, and implementing public policies based on restorative justice and decarceration principles. He regularly testifies before the D.C. Council and works closely with D.C. Council members and senior officials in the D.C. Government on reform efforts aimed at empowering the District’s justice-harmed residents. In addition, Isa represents non-profits in their efforts to increase U.S. support for humanitarian demining projects that utilize mine-detection animals.
Before coming to Foley Hoag, Isa served in the Washington office of U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro – Chair of the House Appropriations Committee – and was a Yale Fox International Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.