Photograph of Professor Macarena Saez

Macarena Saez

Fellow in ILSP

Office: Room 356
 Phone: 202-274-4388
E-mail: vCard


Macarena Sáez is a Fellow in the International Legal Studies Program and teaches at WCL in the areas of Family Law and Comparative Law. Her main areas of research are gender discrimination in Latin America, and comparative family law. Professor Saez is also de faculty director of WCL's Impact Litigation Project.

Macarena is member of the Executive Committee of the Network of Latin American Scholars on Gender, Sexuality and Legal Education ALAS, organization that provides trainings to law professors in Latin America on mainstreaming gender and sexuality perspectives in legal education. She is also member of Libertades Publicas, an organization that promotes civil liberties in Latin America.

Until May 2010, Professor Sáez was WCL's International Programs Coordinator. Among other tasks, in that capacity she was responsible of implementing and directing WCL's international JD dual degree programs, and negotiating and drafting memoranda of agreement with foreign law schools. Before coming to WCL Macarena was a faculty member at the University of Chile Law School where she taught jurisprudence and worked actively in law school's curriculum reform. She has also taught feminist jurisprudence at the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, as well as in other institutions in Latin America.



Areas of Specialization

  • Comparative Law
  • Gender and the Law
  • International Human Rights
  • Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues

Degrees & Universities

  • J.D., University of Chile School of Law
  • L.L.M., Yale Law School

  • Selected Publications

    • Macarena Saez, Same Sex- Marriage, Same-Sex Cohabitation, and Same-Sex Families Around the World: Why “Same” Is So Different?, 19 Am. U. J. Gender Soc. Policy & L. __ (2011).
    • Macarena Saez, Simposio: Matrimonio entre Parejas de un Mismo Sexo, Anuario de Derechos Humanos 2011, U. of Chile L. Sch. Ctr. for Hum. Rights (Symposium: same sex marriage, Human Rights Yearbook 2011).
    • Macarena Saez & Cristina Motta eds, La Mirada de los Jueces: Decisiones sobre Género y Sexualidad en Latinoamérica (Siglo del Hombre Press 2008).
    • Macarena Saez, Breve análisis de las tendencias feministas contemporáneas y su relación con el derecho, in Derechos Humanos, Relaciones Internacionales y Globalización: Studia in honorem Nelson Mandela (Grupo Editorial Ibañez Mar. 2007, reedited Sept. 2009).
    • Macarena Saez, Comentario sobre el proyecto ‘Transformación de la Condición Legal de la Mujer: Integrando temas de género en la doctrina y enseñanza del derecho', in Revista Academia (Universidad de Buenos Aires Oct. 2006).

    • + More Publications...

  • + Selected Works in Progress

    • Macarena Saez, ed., Same-Sex Couples: Comparative Insights on Marriage and Cohabitation (Springer, Dordrecht forthcoming Mar. 2012).