GLOBAL JUSTICE CENTER - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman, UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls
NEW YORK - The Global Justice Center announced today that Elise Keppler has been named Executive Director of the organization following a months-long search process. Keppler is an internationally recognized international justice expert and advocate who joins the Global Justice Center after two decades with Human Rights Watch. She takes over as executive director following the departure of the Global Justice Center's longtime leader, Akila Radhakrishnan. "The Global Justice Center is a feminist legal powerhouse that is much needed in the fight to dismantle systems of oppression and ensure respect for rights," said Keppler. "I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to support the Global Justice Center's incredible team in building on successes to date and leading the organization in its next phase of groundbreaking legal advocacy." Keppler amassed extensive experience seeking justice for atrocity crimes - including sexual and gender-based violence - at Human Rights Watch, serving in various roles in the organization's International Justice Program. She led efforts to advance justice through national, hybrid, and international courts, including for crimes committed in South Sudan, Sudan, Guinea, Central African Republic, and Liberia. "Elise's trademark at Human Rights Watch was to build broad alliances among civil society groups to push back against governmental efforts to undermine international justice," said Ken Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022 and visiting professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. "Autocrats pretended that they stood up for the people in opposing justice efforts, but Elise showed that it was more a quest to avoid accountability. Elise brought strategic creativity to the task, which I am sure will be an asset in her leadership at the Global Justice Center." During her tenure with the International Justice Program, Keppler led a multiyear campaign to secure the surrender of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. She also led the organization's effort to counter backlash against the International Criminal Court in Africa, which mobilized international policymakers and local civil society to champion the court while acknowledging needed improvements. Since 2020, Keppler also served half-time in Human Rights Watch's General Counsel Office, where she worked to assess and mitigate risk for the organization in carrying out its mandate. "In a global landscape where impunity is too often unchallenged, Elise's work to strengthen access to justice for survivors of atrocities, including sexual violence, is inspiring," said Gretchen Freeman Cappio, board chair of the Global Justice Center. "We are honored to welcome her to the Global Justice Center team and are certain her expertise and strategic vision will usher in a bold new era building on the many past successes of the organization." The Global Justice Center works to ensure a gender-equal world where every person lives free from violence, has full bodily autonomy, and has the power to access justice to protect and promote their human rights. Since its founding in 2005, the Global Justice Center has carried out this mission through efforts to deliver international justice for gender-based crimes, to enshrine universal abortion access as a human right, and to embed feminist values in international institutions like the United Nations. "The work of the Global Justice Center is more vital than ever, and I'm confident that Elise is the perfect person to lead it through the next stage of its trailblazing feminist journey," said Akila Radhakrishnan, former executive director of the Global Justice Center. "Whether it's through her bold campaigns to demand justice for atrocity crimes like gender-based violence or the lasting partnerships she built with grassroots activists, Elise has the experience and skills that the Global Justice Center - and the global human rights movement - needs right now." In addition to receiving a bachelor's degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of California Berkeley, Keppler was a visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law in 2012. Her writing and commentary can be seen in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, National Public Radio, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and more.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the UN
Job Titles:
- Permanent Representative of the Republic of Malta to the UN
Janet Benshoof founded the Global Justice Center in 2005 to fulfil her vision of a new kind of human rights organization where women's equality in power was a foundational principle for human rights. Ms. Benshoof was internationally recognized for her human rights and constitutional law expertise. She established landmark legal precedents in the U.S. Supreme Court and international forums. She spearheaded several successful legal efforts from the approval of emergency contraception for women by the FDA, to the application of international rape law to ensure the rights of women in the Iraq High Tribunal prosecutions of Saddam-era war crimes. She lectured and trained women leaders, judges, parliamentarians, and various UN bodies on implementing international human rights laws, such as CEDAW, and international humanitarian law, including women's rights to criminal accountability under Security Council Resolutions and by the International Criminal Court.
Ms. Benshoof received numerous awards and honors including the National Law Journal as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America," the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award" in recognition of her legal work, the Gloria Steinem Women of Vision Award, the Edith Spivack Award for Outstanding New York Women Lawyers, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award.
Before founding the Global Justice Center, Ms. Benshoof served as Director of the American Civil Liberties Reproductive Freedom Project where she spearheaded national litigation shaping Supreme Court law on gender equality, free speech, and reproductive choice. In 1992, Ms. Benshoof founded the first international human rights organization focused on women's rights to reproductive choice and equality, now the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and served as its first President.
Janet Benshoof was a generational force and tireless advocate for the rule of law and women's equality. If you were touched by Janet's life, awed by her legal brilliance, encouraged by her activism, or inspired by her dogged devotion to truth and freedom - we encourage you to consider a gift to the Janet Benshoof Memorial Fund at the Global Justice Center to honor her life and help carry on her legacy.
Job Titles:
- Afghan Activist and Expert
Job Titles:
- John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law & Director, Racial Justice Project, New York Law School