Ayesha Malik is the Deputy Director of RSIL’s Lahore Office, Team Lead at the Conflict Law Centre and a Senior Research Fellow. The CLC publishes reports and policy papers relating to war law in Pakistan and Ayesha is Editor of the CLC Blog, host of the CLC’s Podcast series @War and the webinar series with international authors regarding their books on IR, foreign policy, and war law. She is also Editor-in-Chief for the Diplomacy, Law and Policy Forum, a project with the International Committee for the Red Cross which publishes blogs, podcasts and videos on thematic areas of the law of armed conflict.

Ayesha is also Adjunct Faculty at the Lahore University of Management Sciences where she has taught war law, refugee law, and public international law to undergraduate students. She was awarded a fellowship with Sciences Po at the Paris School of International Affairs for October 2023. Ayesha is also an Ecological Security Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks’ Climate and Security Center for 2023-24.

As Deputy Director, Ayesha represented RSIL at the Group of Governmental Experts meetings on Lethal Autonomous Weapons in Geneva on May 15-19, 2023. She has also spearheaded RSIL’s attempts to get more women into international law by starting a mentoring programme which encourages young female lawyers from non-elite law schools to pursue their careers in the field. 

Ayesha studied law at undergraduate level at Oxford University (Trinity College) and holds a Masters in Legal and Political Theory and an LL.M with a specialisation in international law from University College London. Ayesha has worked in the past for a security policy-based think tank in London and Kabul and worked in the development sector in Pakistan and South Sudan before returning to pursue a profession in law. She worked for Asma Jahangir from 2017-2018 assisting her on cases primarily pertaining to constitutional law and human rights.