Omar M. Dajani is the Carol Olson Professor of International Law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. He also currently serves on the Joint Board of A Land for All, an Israeli-Palestinian political movement that advocates a vision of “Two States, One Homeland.” He is the co-Principal Investigator (with Haim Yacobi) of The Shared Homeland Paradigm: Reimagining Space, Rights, and Partnership in Israel-Palestine, a research and policy advocacy project that was recently awarded a £1 million grant by UK Research and Innovation. And he is a Non-Resident Senior Advisor at the International Peace Institute.
Previously, he served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba, and as a political officer in the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) in Jerusalem. He has also consulted on a variety of legal infrastructure development and conflict resolution processes in the Middle East and elsewhere—for institutions including the United States Department of State, the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, and the European Council on Foreign Relations.
He has published widely regarding Palestine-Israel in academic journals and media outlets (including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post). His recent book, Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (co-edited with Aslı Bâli) (Cambridge University Press, 2023) explores institutional design solutions for addressing identity conflict and governance challenges in the MENA region. He is a graduate of Northwestern University (B.A., 1991) and Yale Law School (J.D., 1997).