MUHAMAD MUGRABY
BIOGRAPHY
A Lebanese lawyer with international practice based in Beirut, Dr. Mugraby was born in 1938. He was educated in Beirut at, and he graduated from, the International College, the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese University. He was also educated in the USA where he graduated from Columbia University Law School, New York, with the degrees of MCL, LLM and JSD. A member of the Beirut Bar since 1960, Dr. Mugraby’s law practice also took him to Western Europe and North America , as well as to many countries in the Middle East, where he set up offices.

As special legal consultant to OPEC advising on the drafting of uniform laws for member countries in the late sixties, Dr. Mugraby strongly called for the establishment of modern independent judicial systems in the oil producing countries of the Middle East as a necessary precondition. In 1967 he introduced the subject of civil rights and civil liberties at the Lebanese University Law school which he personally taught for many years together with the subject of private international law. He ran unsuccessfully for Member of Parliament in 1972.

In 1992, he started a human rights movement within the Beirut Bar Association, which gained legitimacy from the bar leadership, but, unfortunately, did not last long enough due to government pressure. From there on he defended many prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners. Most of these cases assumed high profile. He also represented property owners and tenants in the old city of Beirut, which became part of a highly irregular concession to a privately owned real estate development company, Solidere, which was promoted, and controlled, by the Prime Minister. The government retaliated by attempting to prosecute Dr. Mugraby on dubious charges but without success. International human rights organizations rallied to his support and Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, FIDH and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights issued a joint statement on his behalf, immediately followed by a similar statement by the International Commission of Jurists. He is still facing attempts to prosecute him by the government.

In 1997, Dr. Mugraby received the Human Rights Award of the New York based Human Rights Watch. He was the second recipient of the Beirut based Kamal Murr Award, which was first granted to the late Dr. Charles Malek, a principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Dr. Mugraby is a member of the International Association of Lawyers (UIA) where he serves as vice president of the Defense of the Defense Commission. He is also a member of the International Bar Association. He is a member of APSAD and MIRSAD. He is formerly member of the Beirut Islamic Wakf Council, the American Society of International Law and the British Institute of International and Comparative law. He was cited as an authority in the opinion delivered by Judge Jessup of the International Court of Justice in the famous Barcelona Traction Case. He has lectured extensively and contributed numerous articles on law and the constitution, human rights, and current affairs. His books include “Lebanon First” in Arabic and “Permanent Sovereignty over Oil Resources” in English and Arabic.

He is married to Dalal Macki, professor of interior design and chairman of the interior design department at the Lebanese University Institute of Fine Arts and a graduate of the Pratt Institute, New York. They have two children, Ziad, 27, an economics graduate of Cornell University and an information technology expert, and Suha, 24, a graduate in psychology of the American University of Beirut.
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