HILMI M. ZAWATI is a Palestinian poet, playwright, novelist, and scholar born in Nablus in 1953. Over the past five decades, he has published poetry, fiction, plays, and scholarly works in both Arabic and English. His writing has been translated into several languages and has been the subject of academic and journalistic study.

Alongside his literary work, Zawati has pursued a career in international law. He holds advanced degrees in international criminal law, comparative law, international political economy, Islamic law, and public international law from institutions including McGill University, Punjab University, Khartoum University, Alexandria University, and CPU.

For more than four decades, he has worked as a human rights advocate, with particular attention to international humanitarian law and the rights of victims of wartime sexual violence. His publications include literary works as well as studies in international humanitarian and human rights law, among them Fair Labelling and the Dilemma of Prosecuting Gender-Based Crimes at the International Criminal Tribunals (Oxford University Press, 2015).