The Government Accountability Project is pleased to announce that it has selected Keith Henderson as its 2016 Carvalho Fellow. The fellowship is generously funded each year by GAP Board member Getulio P. Carvalho. In this capacity, Professor Henderson will focus his research on the strengths and weaknesses of whistleblower protections at international organizations, and subsequently recommend the most promising avenues for reforms. GAP has represented clients at these international institutions for more than 10 years, where a unique system of legal immunities and internal tribunals poses distinct challenges for whistleblowers facing reprisal.
Currently, Mr. Henderson serves as an adjunct professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law and has carried out extensive research on the implementation of the UN Anti-Corruption Convention.
“Mr. Henderson has been called a pioneer and innovator in the field of anti-corruption and rule of law and has been profiled as a “mover and a shaker” in Washington, D.C. by the National Journal. His career spans the business, government, international development, academic and non-profit worlds. He has been an international business advisor for companies doing business in developing markets, a corporate lobbyist, a program and policy development specialist for the Federal Trade Commission, a senior expert rule of law and anti-corruption advisor for USAID and the founding executive director of a high profile non-profit regional think tank, the Sunbelt Institute, which is dedicated to promoting sound federal economic development policy in over 20 sunbelt U.S. states. Over the last 25 plus years he has worked with governments, businesses, NGOs and donors in over 50 countries throughout a wide geographical regional spread, including Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Union, as well as countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Malawi, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Timor Leste, India, Indonesia and China.
While at USAID in the 1990’s, Mr. Henderson was responsible for assessing, designing and managing the first rule of law and anti-corruption programs in all of the countries of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Henderson conceptualized and launched the first joint anti-corruption strategy and program for USAID and the Department of State (1994), which combined elements and programs related to both the democracy and governance and economic development divisions at USAID. He also co-conceptualized and helped launch the international law enforcement anti-corruption and rule of law partnership between State, USAID, the Department of Justice and the American Bar Association (1995); the OECD Global Anti-Corruption Network (1995); the USAID/Freedom House publication Nations in Transit (1995); the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University (1999) and the Asian Pacific Supreme Court Judicial Reform Network (2007). Nations in Transit is an annual publication was the first USAID Tool developed to systematically monitor and report on both democratic and economic development reform progress. He is also the co-author of the highly acclaimed USAID/IFES publication, A Global Guide for Promoting Judicial Independence and Accountability and over two-dozen other global best practices and lessons learned articles and policy primers.
You can read more about Professor Henderson here!