Claudio Grossman, Co-Chair
Claudio Grossman is Professor of Law, Dean Emeritus, and the Raymond Geraldson Scholar for International and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law (WCL). Professor Grossman served as WCL dean from 1995-July 2016, at which time he decided to return to the faculty. He was appointed Dean Emeritus by American University's (AU) Board of Trustees in recognition of over two decades of commitment, dedication and distinction. He is a member of the United Nations International Law Commission. Throughout his academic career, Professor Grossman has contributed to promoting the rule of law, human rights and legal education in both international and domestic organizations. Professor Grossman has been consistently recognized as one of the top 25 most influential people in legal education.
Robert K. Goldman, Co-Chair
Robert K. Goldman is Professor of Law and Louis C. James Scholar at American University's Washington College of Law, where he has taught since 1971. Professor Goldman is also Co-Director of the Law School's Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and Faculty Director of the War Crimes Research Office. He is the current President of the International Commision of Jurists, elected in 2018. He was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from 1996 to 2003 and its President from March 1999 to March 2000. From July 2004 to August 2005, he was the U.N. Human Rights Commission's Independent Expert on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. Professor Goldman teaches and publishes on subjects relating to International Law, Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law.
Victor Abramovich
Victor Abramovich was Deputy Solicitor General, Supreme Court of Justice, Buenos Aires Argentina. He has been director of the master's program at the Universidad Nacional de Lanús, Argentina. He has served as the Second Vice-president of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC) and as the Commissioner and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women for the IAHRC. Prior to his work with the IAHRC, he was the Executive Director of Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), a consultant for the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, a consultant of the Inter-American Development Bank, legal advisor of the Ombudsman office of Buenos Aires and he has worked with the U.N. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee. Mr. Abramovich instructs the Human Rights course and directs the Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of Buenos Aires, and teaches at Universidad Nacional de Lanús, Argentina.
Gudmundur Alfredsson
Gudmundur Alfredsson is an Icelandic lawyer (M.C.J. - NYU ’76, S.J.D. - Harvard Law School ‘82). He is Professor in the Polar Law Master Program at the University of Akureyri, Invited Professor at the Law Faculty of the University of Strasbourg, Visiting Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) in Lund, and Visiting Professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He was Law Professor at Lund University (1995-2008), Director of the RWI (1995-2006), staff member with the UN Secretariat in New York and Geneva (1983-95), Chairman of the UN Working Group on Minorities (2006), and a member of the UN Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (2004-06). He was an expert member nominated by the Greenlandic Government on the Danish-Greenlandic Self-Governance Commission (2004-08).
Philip Alston
Philip Alston is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, at New York University Law School. Alston was appointed in 2014 as the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty. He was previously UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions from 2004 to 2010 as well as Special Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals. He chaired the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 1991 to 1998 and played an active role as an Independent Expert appointed by the UN Secretary-General to report on measures to ensure the long-term effectiveness of the UN human rights treaty bodies. He was the sole Legal Adviser to UNICEF throughout the period of the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and was an expert adviser in the preparation of the Machel Report on children in armed conflict.
Jose Alvarez
Hernert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law, Alvarez is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was an attorney adviser at the U.S. Department of State. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981 and practiced law at D.C. firm and at the State Department.
Elizabeth Andersen
Elizabeth "Betsy" Andersen is Executive Director of the World Justice Project, leading its global efforts to advance the rule of law through research, strategic convenings, and support for innovative programs. Ms. Andersen has more than 20 years of experience in the international legal arena. She was formerly Executive Director and Executive Vice President of the American Society of International Law where she has worked since 1995. Most recently, she has served as the Executive Director of the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative where she started to work in 2003. Earlier she also served as the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division, a Legal Assistant to Judge Georges Abi-Saab of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and as a law clerk to Judge Kimba M. Wood of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. Andersen is a graduate of Yale Law School, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Williams College.
Rebecca Cook
Rebecca Cook is a Professor of Law and Faculty Chair in International Human Rights at the University of Toronto where she also serves as a Co-Director of the International Program on Reproductive and Sexual Health Law. She is the Ethical and Legal Issues Co-editor of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, and a member of the editorial Board of the Human Rights Quarterly. Her publications include over one hundred and fifty books, articles and reports in the areas of international human rights, and women's health and feminist ethics law. Prof. Cook has earned a number of academic degrees including A.B. (Barnard University), M.A. (Tufts U.), M.P.A. (Harvard U.), J.D. (Georgetown U.), and J.S.D. (Columbia U.).
Asbjørn Eide
Asbjørn Eide is a Professor Emeritus, founder, and former director of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, at the University of Oslo. He was previously the Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association in Oslo. He has been a member of the United Nations (UN) Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, and since 1995, he has served as chair of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Minorities. As special rapporteur for several UN studies, he focused on topics including conscientious objection as a human right, food as a human right, the new international economic order and the promotion of human rights, and the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. From 1988 to 1989, he was chairman of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. In addition, he has published extensively on human rights issues.
Felipe González Morales
Felipe González Morales is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. He was former Commissioner and Second Vice-President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Previously, he also served as president of IACHR. He was the Commission’s Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families, as well as the Rapporteur for the countries of Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba and Venezuela. He is a professor of International Public Law and Constitutional Law at the Universidad Diego Portales, in Santiago, Chile. Previously he served as the Director of the Legal Research Center, Founder and Director of the Center for Human Rights as well as the Latin American Network of Human Rights Legal Clinics, and Representative on Global Rights to Latin America. He holds a Doctorate and a Master’s in Advanced Studies in Human Rights from the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid as well as a Master’s in International Law from American University.
Ernesto de la Jara
Ernesto de la Jara is a Professor of law at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Del Peru. He was the former director of the Review ‘IDEELE’ and of the Project ‘Justicia Viva’ of the Institute for Legal Defense (IDL), Lima, Peru.
Sarah Joseph
Sarah Joseph is a Professor of Human Rights Law at Griffith University. Prior to her Griffith appointment, she had been a Professor of Law at Monash University from 2005-2019, and was the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law for those 15 years. Professor Joseph is a world-renowned expert on the UN and human rights, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (she is co-author of The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Cases Materials and Commentary, now entering its third edition). She has also published on global trade and human rights (Blame it on the WTO: A Human Rights Critique (OUP, 2011)), corporations and human rights (Corporations and Transnational Human Rights Litigation (Hart, 2004), terrorism and human rights, and, lately, social media and human rights. She has taught human rights courses in Australia, the US, and New Zealand, as well as training courses to international officials from Iraq, Indonesia, Iran and Burma.
Margarette May Macaulay
Margarette May Macaulay is Commissioner and Rapporteur on the Rights of
Persons of African Descent and against Racial Discrimination of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Ms. Macaulay is a former Judge at the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, San Jose, Costa Rica. She is also an Attorney at Law and Mediator in Jamaica. Ms. Macaulay is also a Law Tutor of the Law of Trust at North Western Polytechnic, London. She published several articles and she is a weekly columnist in the Jamaica Observer and the Sunday Herald on social issues, legal issues, and human rights.
Elisa Massimino
Elisa Massimino is executive director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Human Rights Institute. She served as a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and as a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Elisa Massimino was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Human Rights First in September 2008. Ms. Massimino joined Human Rights First as a staff attorney in 1991 to help establish the Washington office. From 1997 to 2008, she served as the organization’s Washington Director. Previously, Ms. Massimino was a litigator in private practice at the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson, where she was pro bono counsel in many human rights cases. Before joining the legal profession, she taught philosophy at several universities in Michigan. Ms. Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. As a national authority on human rights law and policy, she has testified before Congress dozens of times and writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals. In May 2008, the influential Washington newspaper The Hill named her one of the top 20 public advocates in the country.
Juan Méndez
Juan E. Méndez is a Visiting Professor of Law at the American University – Washington College of Law, and an advisor on crime prevention to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He is also Co-Chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. Until May 2009, he was the President of the International Center for Transnational Justice (ICTJ) and in the summer of 2009 he was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation in New York. Concurrent with his duties at ICTJ, the Honorable Kofi Annan named Prof. Méndez his Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, a task he performed from 2004 to 2007. A native of Argentina, Prof. Méndez has dedicated his legal career to the defense of human rights and has a long and distinguished record of advocacy throughout the Americas. In 1994, he became general counsel of Human Rights Watch, with worldwide duties in support of the organization’s mission, including responsibility for litigation and standard setting activities.
Manfred Nowak
Manfred Nowak is Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna, and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights. Manfred Nowak was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture from 2004-2010. Prof. Nowak’s other work with the UN includes serving as a member of the Austrian delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights and contributing to UN initiatives as an expert member in several capacities. Nowak has been a judge, with one year as vice president, of the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina; Chairperson of the European Master Programme on Human Rights and Democratization in Venice. He also served as the Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights at the University of Utrecht and was the 2002-2003 Olof Palme Visiting Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Lund. In 1994, he was awarded a UNESCO prize for the teaching of human rights.
Leo Zwaak
Leo Zwaak is a former Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and Associate Professor, Utrecht University. Professor Zwaak was responsible for the Digest of Strasbourg Case-Law Relating to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe and Gross and Systematic Violations of Human Rights in Europe: the Case of Turkey. The Digest project (in cooperation with Council of Europe, Directorate of Human Rights; Professor P. van Dijk, co-editor) is designed to meet the needs of all those who are required to be, or have an interest in becoming, familiar with the case-law of the organs of the European Convention on Human Rights. The present project is an up-date of a six-volume publication on the case-law of the European Commission and Court of Human Rights, covering the period from 1955 to 1996.He is also the co-author of the book Theory and Practice of the European Convention of Human Rights, 4th revised edition 2006, Intersentia, Antwerp, Belgium.