Ambassador Samantha Power is the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet. She formerly served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council. Power also served as the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she taught courses on U.S. foreign policy, human rights, and extremism and where she was the founding Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
She is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (2002) and Chasing the Flame: Sergio Viera de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (2008), the basis for the award-winning HBO documentary, "Sergio." She is also the recent editor, with Derek Chollet, of The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World (2011). Power has served as a columnist at Time Magazine and, in her journalism, has reported from such places as Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, and contributed regularly to the New Yorker Magazine, the New York Review of Books, and the New Republic.
Power is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. She lives with her husband, Cass Sunstein, and their son Declan in Washington, DC.
Samantha Power's Posts
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US Leadership to Advance Equality for LGBT People Abroad
December 13, 2012 at 5:00 PM EDTIn honor of Human Rights Week, Samantha Power explains how advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people around the world is central to, not separate from, our comprehensive human rights agenda.
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Supporting Human Rights in Burma
November 9, 2012 at 11:01 AM EDTPresident Obama's policy approach to Burma has been to support reform and those championing it – an investment in Burma’s future that the President will personally reinforce later this month during his historic visit to Rangoon.
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President Obama Directs New Atrocity Prevention Measures
August 6, 2011 at 7:04 PM EDTA new tool to strengthen our ability to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity
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Announcing HumanRights.gov
April 11, 2011 at 2:44 PM EDTIn conjunction with the release of its annual Human Rights Report, the State Department officially launches HumanRights.gov.
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Transparency Gone Global
March 22, 2011 at 4:09 PM EDTGood government isn't just a priority for President Obama. In countries around the world, governments and civil society groups are taking new and creative steps to ensure that government delivers for citizens and to strengthen democratic accountability.
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A US-India Partnership on Open Government
November 7, 2010 at 3:56 PM EDTSamantha Power, Senior Director and Special Assistant for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, describes President Obama's visit to the Expo on Democracy and Open Government in Mumbai.
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A Landmark Achievement for Human Rights: The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Assembly and Association
September 30, 2010 at 7:05 PM EDTSamantha Power, Senior Director and Special Assistant for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, explains how a diverse group of countries has come together to create the first-ever Special Rapporteur on freedom of association and assembly.
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A Public Dialogue on Darfur
November 12, 2009 at 6:24 PM EDTSamantha Power, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs for the National Security Council, reports on an interactive online town hall discussion discussing the Darfur Crisis in Sudan.
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President Obama Meets the Peacekeepers
September 24, 2009 at 10:43 AM EDT
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