Magnitsky Awards
Winner’s Bio

Born and raised in Equatorial Guinea, Tutu Alicante is the founder and executive director of EG Justice. Established in 2007, EG Justice is the world’s first nonprofit organization that focuses on human rights, anti-corruption, and rule of law initiatives in Equatorial Guinea, home to one of the world’s longest-ruling dictatorships. In retaliation for his activism, the country’s president declared him a “traitor and enemy of the state.” He now lives in self- imposed exile in the United States.

A trained human rights lawyer who holds advanced degrees from Columbia University and the University of Tennessee, Tutu is an expert on authoritarianism, resource revenue transparency, and global kleptocracy who has frequently appeared as a media commentator – including on the BBC, Radio France International and Voice of America – and has written extensively for premier international publications such as the Washington Post, The Guardian, and Economist.

Tutu is a co-founder of the Equatoguinean Commission of Jurists, in addition to the pro- democracy and anti-corruption platforms Equatorial Guinea is Ours and Open Central Africa. He was an expert witness in the groundbreaking “Biens Mal Acquis” case in Paris, which ended with the criminal conviction of the Equatoguinean Vice President and the confiscation of all his ill-gotten assets. In 2019, Tutu was a contributor to the International Forum for Democracy Studies, in which he authored a research paper on the court case and additionally outlined transnational kleptocracy as a form of networked state capture by political elites in Central Africa.

He has testified before the United States Congress on multiple occasions, including most recently in March 2021 on the impact and utility of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. He has also testified before the UN Human Rights Committee and the European Commission on issues of global corruption and the status of human rights in Equatorial Guinea.

Tutu is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and a participant in prominent online discussion forums as well as major public events, including as an inaugural speaker at the 2017 Oslo Freedom Forum in New York.