Rez Gardi MNZM is an international human rights lawyer, award-winning advocate, and trailblazer in the global refugee leadership movement. Born in a refugee camp in Pakistan after her Kurdish family fled genocide, Rez’s journey from statelessness to the global changemaker is a powerful story of resilience, justice, and leadership.
Arriving in New Zealand with nothing, Rez sought to use her difficult start in life as motivation to succeed, becoming New Zealand's first Kurdish female lawyer. She graduated as a Fulbright Scholar with a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School, becoming the first Kurd in history to graduate from Harvard Law.
Rez is the Co-Managing Director of R-SEAT (Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table), the only global refugee-led organisation working to strengthen the role of refugees in international decision-making. She has helped lead refugee participation at high-level policy forums, including the United Nations General Assembly, the Global Refugee Forum, and the Human Rights Council.
She is also the Co-Director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies (CAPRS) at the University of Auckland, a research hub responding to the complex challenges of conflict and climate-induced displacement in the Asia Pacific region.
Rez’s work spans the courtroom to the frontlines. She has worked on the ground across conflict zones and humanitarian settings—from documenting war crimes committed by ISIS against the Yezidi people on the Iraq–Syria border, to leading accountability efforts for grave violations against children across South Sudan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka. She has contributed to major international litigation, including a landmark case that found multinational banana company Chiquita liable for financing a Colombian paramilitary group responsible for widespread human rights abuses and killings. Rez previously worked for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and has lectured on international law and human rights. Her legal and policy expertise—alongside her lived experience—continues to shape global conversations around justice, forced displacement, and survivor-led solutions.
In 2017, she founded Empower Youth Trust, a refugee-youth-led organisation that began in New Zealand and now works globally—including in refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq—to foster education equity and leadership for young people from refugee backgrounds. Empower has supported over 10,000 refugee youth through mentorship, workshops, and advocacy.
In 2025, Rez was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to human rights and refugees. She was named Young New Zealander of the Year in 2017 and has received numerous accolades, including being recognised as one of New Zealand’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in 2021.
She received the Outstanding Youth Delegate Award at the UN Youth Assembly in 2019, the Global Impact Award in 2020, was named a Peace Ambassador by the European Commission in 2021, and in 2022, was recognised as a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Goalkeeper for her leadership in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. She is also a Vital Voices Global Fellow, an Eisenhower Youth Fellow, and a finalist for the Echoing Green Fellowship.
An inspiring speaker, Rez has addressed audiences around the world—from the United Nations in Geneva and New York to grassroots workshops in refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda. Whether speaking to world leaders or young changemakers, Rez delivers bold, authentic insights on inclusion, leadership, justice, and hope. Her story not only uplifts, but challenges audiences to think differently about inclusion, identity, and what it means to lead.
Rez was an outstanding speaker whose journey in law was so relevant to our inaugural New Lawyer Conference delegates. She was inspiring as well as engaging. ... keep reading New Zealand Law Society | Canterbury Westland Branch
Rez is a truly remarkable young woman, who has managed to overcome very difficult beginnings as a Kurdish refugee, through a total rejection of her own culture to try to "fit in in New Zealand as her country of settlement, to a recent reconciliation with her past as a platform of strength upon which to build a scaffolding of support for other refugees. As Young New Zealander of the Year 2017 and the first ever Kurdish lawyer Rez has been rightly recognized for her courage and her activism in New Zealand and has been invited to represent us internationally on a number of occasions. Her maturity and strength of character are evident not only through her ability to acquit herself on the global stage, but also through her actions - in founding a successful charity, for example - and in her demeanor of quiet confidence and compassion face to face.
