Prof. Henry Kwasi Prempeh was born on 17th July 1970s, is a Ghanaian lawyer, legal scholar, and governance expert. He is the Executive Director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), one of Africa’s leading policy research and advocacy institutions focused on democracy, constitutionalism, and good governance.
Education
Henry Kwasi Prempeh earned a Bachelor of Science in Administration from the University of Ghana. He later obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Baylor University in the United States.
In 1993, he graduated from Yale Law School, where he distinguished himself academically and served as a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal, one of the most prestigious legal journals in the world.
Career
After completing his legal education, Prempeh began his career in private legal practice in the United States. He worked as an associate at the international law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP, and later at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Washington, D.C.
In 1998, he was appointed as a Board Member of the newly established Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). Between 2001 and 2003, he served as Director of Legal Policy and Governance at CDD-Ghana, contributing significantly to policy research and constitutional advocacy.
In 2003, Prempeh joined the faculty of Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey, as a professor of law. He secured tenure in 2008 and remained at Seton Hall until 2015.
From 2010 to 2011, he served as a Visiting Professor at the newly established law school of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in Accra. His academic and professional work has focused extensively on constitutionalism, democratic governance, legal reform, and public policy in Ghana and across Africa.
In recognition of his contributions to democratic development, Prempeh was selected as a Reagan–Fascell Democracy Fellow by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 2011. As of 2018, he was also serving as a member of the Ghana Law Reform Commission.
Executive Director of CDD-Ghana
On February 1, 2018, Henry Kwasi Prempeh was appointed Executive Director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), succeeding the founding director, Professor E. Gyimah-Boadi, following his retirement. In this role, Prempeh leads CDD-Ghana’s research, advocacy, and public engagement initiatives aimed at strengthening democracy, accountability, and the rule of law in Ghana and beyond.
Chairman of Ghana 2025 Constitution Review
H. Kwasi Prempeh serves as Chairman of the Ghana 2025 Constitution Review process, where he leads national consultations and expert deliberations aimed at reforming and strengthening Ghana’s constitutional governance framework.
