Our Co-Founders

Aneesa Agha Co-Founder & Head of Litigation

Aneesa Agha is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, human rights, and environment justice. She has played a key role in high-impact litigation, advocating for judicial reforms, gender equality and environmental protections. Her work includes legal challenges, particularly in the areas of fait trial rights, climate litigation, and advocacy for vulnerable groups. Through her legal practice and policy advocacy, Aneesa continues to push for systemic changes that strengthen the rule of law and uphold fundamental rights.

Beyond litigation, Aneesa is actively involved in legal research and public discourse on issues such as judicial appointments, gender representation in the legal profession, and corporate accountability in environmental governance. She has spoken at leading national and international forums and contributes to legal scholarship through research and publications. As a co-founder of CFR, she is committed to using the law as a tool for justice, ensuring that human rights remain at the forefront of Pakistan’s legal and policy landscape.

Noorzadeh Raja Co-Founder & Head of Advocacy

Noorzadeh Raja is a human rights lawyer with an expertise in international human rights law and international criminal law. She has eight years of experience in policy advocacy and campaigning focusing on abolition of capital punishment and arbitrary detention, criminalisation of custodial torture, juvenile justice and prison reforms. She is skilled in advocacy with diverse stakeholders, including Parliamentarians, judiciary, government stakeholders, United Nations Special Procedures, United Nations treaty bodies and European Union institutions monitoring Pakistan’s compliance with the GSP+ regime. Notably, she made an oral submission on gender-based violence in Pakistan to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva in February 2020, and was a panelist in the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT)’s Global Week against Torture (2021), and a speaker in the United Against Torture Coalition Detention Summit (October 2021) and the EU-NGO Human Rights Forum (November 2021). Previously, she served as Head of Policy and Advocacy at Justice Project Pakistan.