Nury Turkel

Turkel practiced law in the areas of global trade, regulatory compliance, anti-corruption, export controls, and economic sanctions. At Covington & Burling, he advised multinational companies on corporate compliance, internal investigations, international trade, and U.S. government enforcement matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), export controls, and economic sanctions.^[15]

He later served as compliance counsel at Ericsson, where he worked on global corporate compliance, anti-corruption, export controls, economic sanctions, and business and human rights matters.^[16]

In May 2020, Turkel was appointed a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. He was reappointed in May 2022 and was unanimously elected chair for the 2022–2023 term.^[17] Pelosi said of Turkel, "I am confident that he will continue to be a powerful voice for the Uyghur people and for the cause of justice around the world."^[18]

Turkel served as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, where his research focused on U.S.–China relations, international trade, export controls, economic sanctions, artificial intelligence, digital authoritarianism, forced labor, and supply chain resilience. He is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[19]

Turkel co-founded the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) in 2003 and served as its first executive director and later chairman of the board.^[5][14][20] From 2004 to 2006, he served as president of the Uyghur American Association.^[5][4][21]

Turkel has testified before the United States Congress and congressional commissions on numerous occasions on issues including Uyghur human rights, forced labor, international religious freedom, digital authoritarianism, supply chain security, and U.S.–China relations. His appearances have included testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and the United States House Committee on Ways and Means.^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

Beginning in 2018, Turkel advocated for U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese officials and entities implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and supported passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act. He also urged Congress to enact the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which established a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or in part in Xinjiang are made with forced labor unless proven otherwise.^{[27][28][29][30]} According to The Wire China, Turkel's October 2019 testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China "set off a chain of events" that eventually resulted in enactment of the UFLPA.^[31]

Turkel has also written and spoken on issues at the intersection of technology, national security, and U.S.–China strategic competition. His work has addressed artificial intelligence, export controls, digital authoritarianism, supply chain resilience, and emerging technologies. His policy commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy, and he authored the Hudson Institute policy memorandum AI, National Security, and the Global Technology Race: How US Export Controls Define the Future of Innovation.^{[32][33][34][35]}