Magnitsky Awards
Dominic Raab
Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State
Award Winner 2017
Outstanding Campaigning Politician
Dominic Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State on 24 July 2019. He was first elected Conservative MP for Esher and Walton in May 2010.
Raab studied law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and for a Masters at Cambridge, winning the Clive Parry Prize for International Law.
He started his career as a business lawyer at City law firm Linklaters, working on project finance, international litigation and competition law. He also spent time on secondments at Liberty (the human rights NGO) and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law. Raab later worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) between 2000 and 2006 on a range of issues including investor protection, maritime issues, war crimes policy and counter-terrorism.
Raab left the FCO in 2006, and worked for three years as Chief of Staff to respective Shadow Home and Justice Secretaries, advising in the House of Commons on crime, policing, immigration, counter-terrorism, human rights and constitutional reform.
In 2011, Raab was voted Newcomer of the Year and The Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. Between 2010 and 2015, he served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and Education Selection Committee.
He was re-elected MP for Esher and Walton in 2015 and appointed Minister for Human Rights in David Cameron’s government.
In January 2018, Raab was made Minister of State for Housing and in July was appointed Brexit Secretary. He resigned in November 2018 over the proposed UK-EU deal on Brexit.
In July 2019, Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State under the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
He was re-elected as Member of Parliament in December 2019 for the fourth time with 49% of the vote.