Zaid Al-Ali

Zaid Al-Ali is an independent scholar and a lawyer.  He specializes in constitutional negotiations, peace negotiations and commercial arbitration.  His primary field of academic interest is comparative constitutional law and constitutional negotiations in Arab-majority countries (also known as the Middle East). His legal practice tends to focus on disputes in the energy sector.

Zaid graduated with law degrees from King’s College London in 1997, from the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) in 1999 and from Harvard Law School in 2001. He started his legal career at Shearman & Sterling LLP, where he practiced international commercial and investment arbitration in its Paris and London offices. In February 2005, he moved to the Middle East to work for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. He was a legal adviser for the Office of Constitutional Support, which was mandated to provide advice to the Iraqi constitutional drafting committee.

In early 2011, after Tunisia's and Egypt's long time dictators were deposed, Zaid moved to Cairo where he focused on constitutional reform in the Arab region, with a specific focus on Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen.  Since 2015, he has been supporting negotiations to end conflict in a variety of countries, including in Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Sudan.  Since November 2024, he has been a visiting fellow in Princeton University.

Zaid is the author of two academic books: The Struggle for Iraq's Future (Yale, 2014) and Arab Constitutionalism (Cambridge, 2021).  He is currently working on a new book on peace negotiations.