FELIX C. MORKA, ESQ
Felix C. Morka is the Founder and Executive Director of the Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC). He is the CEO of Urban Spaces Innovation (USI); Diji Properties and Investment Ltd.; and Alese Social Housing Development Ltd. Morka served as the Legal Officer for Africa of the Washington, D.C.-based International Human Rights Law Group where he conducted and participated in key projects advancing the rule of law in Malawi, Kenya and Nigeria. In Ethiopia, Morka participated in a major study of the country’s judicial system. Prior, Morka was the Legal Director of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO). He introduced and coordinated innovative programs that expanded access to CLO’s free legal services and led the organization’s path-breaking public interest litigation activities. In 1995, Morka traveled widely in India and South Africa understudying cutting-edge approaches to the defense of land and housing rights on behalf the urban poor. In June 1997, he served as Chairman of the United Nations Expert Committee that drafted the International Human Rights Guidelines on Development-Based Involuntary Displacements. Subsequently, he led the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions’ (COHRE) fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe that examined the country’s controversial land redistribution policy. In July 2002, Morka served as a member of an expert group appointed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Director of UNAIDS to draft a new Guideline No. 6 of the International Human Rights Guidelines on HIV/AIDS on Access to Medication. In December 2002, Morka was appointed a member of the UNAIDS’ Global Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. Morka served as chairman of the Body Shop International Human Rights Award Jury, and was a founding member of the board of directors of the International Network for the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net). Morka was a member of the Steering Committee of the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP), a 200 Million US Dollar – World Bank-funded project of the Lagos State Government. He served as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Niger Delta Legacy Engagement (Dawn in the Creeks), a project of the Government of the United States of America. Morka was the First Martin Ennals Fellow of the European Human Rights Foundation, and a Reginald Lewis Fellow of the Harvard Human Rights Program. He was a Special Guest of the Government of Germany on an Urban Development Tour of Germany (2018). He was Guest Speaker of CARITAS CANADA’s Share Lent Campaign Tour of Canada (2018). Morka was a Visitor on the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the United States Government (2017). Morka has litigated and won several landmark cases within the municipal and international legal fora, including Georgina Ahamefula v. Imperial Medical Center (a case of unconstitutional discrimination based on HIV/AIDS Status), and Social and Economic Rights Action Center & Anor. v Government of Nigeria (affirming the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to adequate housing). He is the author of several publications, including A Place to Live, Stones of Hope – How African Activists Reclaim Human Rights to Challenge Global Poverty (ed. Harvard Professor Lucie E. White & Jeremy Perelman) (Standford University Press, 2010.) Morka currently serves as Senior Special Assistant to the Deputy President of the Senate on Legal and Constitutional Matters. He has presented testimonies before the United States Congress and the Senate of the State of New Jersey, and meets regularly with policymakers to raise human rights and urban development concerns. Morka holds a Master of Laws Degree (LL.M) from the Harvard Law School.