Justice Ambassadors

Beth Van Schaack - photo

Ambassador Beth Van Schaack

Juan E.
Méndez

Lindsay Freeman - photo

Lindsay
Freeman

Nadja
Skaljic

Oleksandra
Matviichuk

Rebecca
Hamilton

Reed
Brody

Steve Crawshaw - photo

Steve
Crawshaw

Radhya
al-Mutawakel

Angela
Mudukuti

Mazen
Darwish

Kimberly
Marteau Emerson

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Ambassador Beth Van Schaack

Ambassador Beth Van Schaack is an American lawyer, advocate, professor of law, and former Ambassador-at-Large of the Office of Global Criminal Justice.

Most recently, she served as the Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal of the U.S. State Department from 2022-2025. In this role, she advises the U.S. Secretary of State and other U.S. Department leadership on issues related to the prevention of and response to atrocity crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Amb. Van Schaack served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large in GCJ from 2012 to 2013.

Prior to returning to public service in 2022, Ambassador Van Schaack was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, where she taught international criminal law, human rights, human trafficking, and a policy lab on Legal & Policy Tools for Preventing Atrocities. In addition, she directed Stanford’s International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic. Ambassador Van Schaack began her academic career at Santa Clara University School of Law, where, in addition to teaching and writing on international human rights issues, she served as the Academic Adviser to the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda. Earlier in her career, she was a practicing lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, LLP; the Center for Justice & Accountability, a human rights law firm; and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Amb. Van Schaack has published numerous articles and papers on international human rights and justice issues, including her 2020 thesis, Imagining Justice for Syria (Oxford University Press). From 2014 to 2022, she served as Executive Editor for Just Security, an online forum for the analysis of national security, foreign policy, and rights. She is a graduate of Stanford (BA), Yale (JD) and Leiden (PhD) Universities.

Beth Van Schaack - photo

Juan E. Méndez

Juan E. Méndez is a Professor of Human Rights Law in Residence at the American University – Washington College of Law.

Where he is Faculty Director of the Anti-Torture Initiative, a project to WCL’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Mr Méndez was the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment between November 2010 and October 31, 2016. He is the author (with Marjory Wentworth) of “Taking A Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights” (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).

In early 2017, Mr Méndez was elected Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, Switzerland. In February 2017, he was named a member of the Selection Committee to appoint magistrates of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and members of the Truth Commission set up as part of the Colombian Peace Accords. He was an advisor on crime prevention to the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court from 2009 to 2011 and Co-Chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association in 2010 and 2011. Until May 2009, he was the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Concurrent with his duties at ICTJ, the Honorable Kofi Annan named Mr Méndez his Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, a task he performed from 2004 to 2007.

A native of Argentina, Mr Méndez has dedicated his legal career to the defense of human rights, primarily in the Americas. As a result of his representation of political prisoners, the Argentinean military dictatorship arrested him and subjected him to torture and administrative detention for more than a year. During this time, Amnesty International adopted him as a “Prisoner of Conscience.” After his expulsion from his country in 1977, Mr Méndez moved to the United States.

For 15 years, he worked with Human Rights Watch, on human rights issues in the western hemisphere from 1982 to 1994 and, between 1994 and 1996, as General Counsel. From 1996 to 1999, Mr Méndez was the Executive Director of the Inter American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica, and between October 1999 and May 2004 he was Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Between 2000 and 2003 he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and served as its President in 2002.

He has taught International Human Rights Law at Georgetown Law School and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and he teaches regularly at the Oxford Masters Program in International Human Rights Law in the United Kingdom, where he was a Visiting Fellow of the Kellogg College until 2021 and a Research Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights during the Michealmas term in 2023. He is the recipient of several human rights awards: the Rafael Lemkin Award for contributions to the prevention of genocide by the Auschwitz Institute on Peace and Reconciliation (2010); the Goler T. Butcher Medal from the American Society of International Law (2010); the Louis B. Sohn and the Adlai Stevenson Awards from the UN Association of the US (Washington and Princeton Chapters); Doctorates Honoris Causa from the University of Quebec in Montreal (2006), the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina (2012), the National University of Mar del Plata, Argentina (2015) and the National University of Cuyo, Argentina (2021); the inaugural “Monsignor Oscar A. Romero Award for Leadership in Service to Human Rights,” by the University of Dayton (2000); the “Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Award” of the Heartland Alliance (2003); the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award of the Institute for Policy Studies (2014); and the Eclipse Award of the Center for Victims of Torture (2016).

Lindsay Freeman

Lindsay Freeman is the Director of Technology, Law & Policy at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law.

Freeman is an American lawyer specializing in international criminal law and international humanitarian law with a focus on digital evidence and digital investigations.

She led the drafting of the United Nations’ Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations and developed an OSI training course with the Institute of International Criminal Investigations. She has trained professionals at a number of organizations including Interpol, Europol, ICC, IRMCT, OPCW, UNODC, and OHCHR.

She previously worked for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and served as a trial lawyer for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office; a law clerk for the U.S. Attorney’s Economic Crime and Securities Fraud Unit; and on the legal team representing victims in Case 002 at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Before becoming a lawyer, Freeman worked for Google and another tech start-up in Silicon Valley.

She holds an Adv. LL.M. in public international law from Leiden University; J.D. from University of San Francisco School of Law; and B.A. in political science from Middlebury College.

Lindsay Freeman - photo

Nadja Skaljic

Nadja Skaljic is a globally recognized international lawyer and board director whose expertise bridges law, capital markets, and emerging technologies.

Known for her ability to lead high-stakes, cross-border initiatives, she currently serves as Chief Legal and Strategy Officer at a Swiss-based privately-held company.

A graduate of Oxford, Harvard, and The Fletcher School, Ms Skaljic brings a rare combination of legal acumen, diplomatic experience, and commercial insight. She began her legal career at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where she worked on the genocide prosecution of Radovan Karadžić—one of the most significant international criminal trials of our time. In this role, she prepared senior UN officials for witness testimony and oversaw the coordination of trial proceedings.

As Senior Policy Advisor to the British Mission to the EU before and during the Brexit negotiations, Ms Skaljic helped shape foundational EU frameworks on foreign affairs, defence, climate, and digital policy. Her contributions informed major global agreements, including the Paris Accord, the Digital Single Market, and GDPR.

As Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council in New York, Ms Skaljic co-led a global research initiative exploring moral decision-making in fractured societies—work that culminated in the acclaimed book The Ordinary Virtues and continues to influence discourse on ethics and global governance.

Ms Scaljic is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Foresight Network and The Club of Rome, a Fellow of both the European Law Institute and the Royal Society of Arts.

Oleksandra Matviichuk

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights lawyer, head of the Center for Civil Liberties that works to defend freedom and human dignity in Ukraine and the OSCE region.

She has experience in creating horizontal structures for massive involvement of people in human rights activities against attacks on rights and freedoms, as well as a multi-year practice of documenting violations during armed conflict. She is the author of a number of reports to various UN bodies, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court.

After the beginning of Russian full-scale invasion, Ms Matviichuk together with other partners created the ‘Tribunal for Putin’ initiative in order to document international crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in all regions of Ukraine, including the occupied territories.

In 2016 she received the Democracy Defender Award for “Exclusive Contribution to Promoting Democracy and Human Rights” from OSCE. In 2017 she became the first woman to participate in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program of Stanford University. In 2022 Oleksandra Matviichuk was awarded with the Right Livelihood Award, the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament and recognized as one of the 25th influential women in the world by Financial Times. In 2022 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for the work of her organization the Center for Civil Liberties. In 2025 she received the Dutch Auschwitz Award.

Rebecca Hamilton

Professor of Law at American University, Washington College of Law, teaching international law, national security law, and criminal law.

She was a 2024 U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and a Fall 2023 Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA Law. She is an Executive Editor at Just Security, and is an internationally recognized expert on atrocity prevention. Her scholarship focuses on the structural factors underlying international crimes, including the role of new technologies and the impact of climate change. Her work draws on her experience in the prosecution of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as well as her work in conflict zones as a foreign correspondent.

Professor Hamilton’s recent scholarship has appeared in the Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard International Law Journal, Boston College Law Review and Harvard Human Rights Journal. She is the author of Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide, which analyzes citizen activism and the effort to stop mass atrocities. Professor Hamilton has received a number of grants, awards, fellowships, including the WCL Award for Innovation in Pedagogy (2021), the Pauline Ruyle Moore Scholars Award (2018, 2020), and the CFR International Affairs Fellowship (2020). She has also been a Pulitzer Center grantee, and the recipient of fellowships from New America and the Open Society Foundations.

Previously, Professor Hamilton served as a lawyer in the prosecutorial division of the International Criminal Court, working on cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Sudan. Hamilton has also worked in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and has been the Deputy Director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU School of Law. Prior to entering academia she worked as a journalist for the Washington Post, and Reuters. Her writing has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. Recent interviews include PBS Newshour, NPR, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and other media outlets.

Reed Brody

Reed Brody has spent his career investigating atrocities and bringing their perpetrators to justice.

He worked for 20 years alongside the victims of Chad’s dictator Hissène Habré who was convicted of crimes against humanity in Senegal, and has helped pursue despots such as Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti, and Yahya Jammeh of Gambia. His 1985 investigation uncovered atrocities by the U.S.-backed “contras” against Nicaraguan civilians and led to a halt in U.S. funding. In 2024, he was appointed to the United Nations’ human rights probe in Nicaragua. Previously, he led U.N. teams investigating massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo and monitoring human rights in El Salvador.

As Advocacy Director and Spokesperson at Human Rights Watch, he exposed Bush administration torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and wrote the book “Faut-il Juger George Bush?”. He coordinated the 1997 International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) report “Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law.” He regularly teaches courses on accountability, including at Columbia Law School and the American University Washington College of Law. He is an ICJ Commissioner and board member of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. His latest book is “To Catch a Dictator” (Columbia University Press, 2022).

Steve Crawshaw

Steve Crawshaw is the author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice (Bridge Street Press, 2025).

Until 2023, he was policy and advocacy director at Freedom from Torture. Before that, he was UK director and UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, and international advocacy director and Director of the Office of the Secretary General at Amnesty International.

He joined the Independent at launch; his roles there included Russia and East Europe Editor, Germany bureau chief and chief foreign correspondent. His previous books are Goodbye to the USSR (1992), Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century (2004), Small Acts of Resistance (with John Jackson, foreword by Václav Havel, 2010) and Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief (foreword by Ai Weiwei, 2017).

Steve Crawshaw - photo

Radhya Mutawakel

Radhya al-Mutawakel is a leading Yemeni human rights defender.

She is the chairperson and co-founder of Mwatana, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated organization that investigates and documents human rights violations, provides legal support to survivors of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture, and engages in capacity building and advocacy for accountability in Yemen.  

Al-Mutawakel has more than two decades of experience in the human rights field working on issues including war crimes and freedom of the press. She has testified before the European Parliament and U.S. Congress and briefed the U.N. Security Council about her work and the war in Yemen.

TIME Magazine included Al-Mutawakel on its list of the 100 most influential people of 2019. She graduated from Sanaa University with a degree in mass communications and diplomas in gender studies and political science. 

Angela Mudukuti

Zimbabwean human rights lawyer, specialized in international criminal law and women's rights with over 17 years of experience.

Using a survivor/victim centred and intersectional approach Angela has worked all over the world and for a number of organizations including: the International Criminal Court, Open Society Foundations, Human Rights Watch, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre and the Clooney Foundation for Justice. With a gender lens, she has focused on investigations, strategic litigation, advocacy, and capacity building.

She has trained prosecutors and investigators to enhance domestic capacity to tackle international crimes; used universal jurisdiction to bring precedent-setting cases before South African courts including seeking the arrest of the former president of Sudan during his visit to South Africa. Passionate about reaching marginalised communities, Angela has also led strategic interventions to provide access to justice for thousands of women and girls in remote communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Angela has been published in books, journals and newspapers and sits on several editorial committees including the Oxford Journal for International Criminal Justice and Opinio Juris. Her work has been featured in the media including the Financial Times and she has been named one of the top 30 Gender Equality Activists in the world by CNN.

Mazen Darwish

Mazen Darwish is a Syrian lawyer and one of the leading voices for human rights and accountability in Syria.

He is the founder and President of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), a leading organization in documenting violations and supporting victims in their pursuit of justice.

His work has contributed to landmark cases before European courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction, helping to bring perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice.

Darwish has been arrested multiple times due to his human rights work, most recently between 2012 and 2015. This experience has further strengthened his commitment to justice and the rule of law. Since his release, he has continued his international advocacy for accountability, freedom of expression, and the protection of human rights defenders.



He has received more than 12 international awards and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is currently leading advanced efforts to promote transitional justice in Syria, including initiatives on missing persons, institutional reform, and victim-centered justice, while engaging with international and national stakeholders to support a sustainable path toward accountability.

Kimberly Marteau Emerson

Lawyer, advocate and non-profit governance leader in human rights, education and transatlantic relations.

Ms. Emerson currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Human Rights Watch, Chair of the Board of Governors of Bard College Berlin, and on the Board of Trustees of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson and the Board of Directors of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty.

Ms. Emerson also serves as an advisor to the Thomas Mann House; foreign and domestic policy retreat center the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands; the USC Center on Public Diplomacy; the German-American Institutes; and German social impact consultancy PHINEO. She recently joined the Aspen Institute Germany Leadership Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

In 2023 President Biden appointed Ms. Emerson to serve on the US Holocaust Memorial Council. From 2013 to 2017, she worked in Berlin alongside her spouse, U.S. Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson (ret.) on projects including the Embassy’s efforts to combat antisemitism and integration efforts during the 2015 refugee crisis. Throughout, she used the Embassy’s convening power to promote bringing women in Germany to the economic and political decision-making table. During the Clinton Administration, 1993-1996, she served as spokesperson and director of public liaison for the U.S. Information Agency.

Ms. Emerson has been an election observer in Nigeria with the National Democratic Institute, and worked on relief projects in Lesbos, Greece during the 2015/2016 refugee crisis, and in Sri Lanka post-tsunami. She has been deeply active in U.S. Presidential politics, and helped many candidates on the local, state and federal level.

For her civic engagement, Ms. Emerson has received multiple awards, including from the American Jewish Committee, People for the American Way and foster youth-focused United Friends of the Children.

She received her B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) from UCLA, J.D. from UC Law San Francisco, and Master’s in French Private Law (D.E.S.U. with honors) from l’Université de Droit d’Aix- Marseille. Ms. Emerson is based in Los Angeles and Berlin, and speaks fluent French and conversational German.