Benyam Dawit Mezmur is currently Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow at the Harvard Law School human rights program. He is a professor of law at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. Since 2012, he is serving on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and served as its chairperson from 2015-2017. In 2018, Pope Francis appointed him to serve on the Pontifical Commission on the Protection of Minors. In September 2022, he was reappointed for a five years term.