Sarah Leah Whitson is an American human rights activist and director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

Whitson is a graduate of the University of California(BA, 1988), Berkeley and of Harvard Law School(JD, 1991). Whitson is director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. She has led landmark investigations of human rights conditions in Libya and Saudi Arabia and numerous advocacy missions in the region, and overseen over 20 research missions and edited the resulting reports. She has published articles on the Middle East in international and regional publications. She was previously employed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She has also carried out Human rights work for the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Harvard Study Team and International Study Team missions examining the impact of war and sanctions on the Iraqi civilian population, the International Human Rights Law Group's election-monitoring mission in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq.

Israel's settlements are on shaky ground, Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2009