Desirée Cormier Smith is a co-founder and co-president of the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice. She is also an inaugural Senior Fellow in the newly launched Human Rights & US Foreign Policy Fellowship at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School and an inaugural Alcee L. Hastings Global Futures Fellow at Howard University’s Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center. From 2022 until 2025, she served as the US Department of State’s inaugural Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice. Previously, she served as the Senior Advisor in the Department of State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, and worked at the Open Society Foundations as the Senior Policy Advisor for Africa, Europe, and Eurasia. Before that she was the Senior Director with Albright Stonebridge Group’s Africa Practice, where she advised and assisted private and social sector clients on growth strategies across the African continent. She began her career as a State Department Foreign Service Officer with assignments in Mexico, South Africa, and Washington, DC.

Jessica Stern is also Co-Founder and Co-President of the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice and an expert in gender, sexuality and human rights with more than two decades of leadership across government, civil society, multilateral institutions, philanthropy, and academia. She also serves as an inaugural Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, where she is pioneering new fellowships on global LGBTQI+ equality and inclusive foreign policy. She is the first LGBTQI+ rights expert to hold a senior fellowship at the Kennedy School. From 2021 to 2025, she served as US Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons, where she directed US foreign policy to combat discrimination and violence worldwide. As Special Envoy, she represented the United States bilaterally, mobilized government coalitions, and oversaw policies and programs disbursing millions in foreign assistance. Previously, she served as Executive Director of Outright International, one of the world’s largest global LGBTQI+ rights NGOs. At Columbia University, she teaches the first and only course on LGBTQI+ rights and public policy at the School of International and Public Affairs; and she lectures at Leiden University’s Summer School on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Law, the premier academic intensive for students and practitioners in the field.

Jessica So is an international human rights lawyer and advocate with more than a decade of global experience leading high-impact initiatives, including eight years based in Myanmar, Lebanon, and Jordan. She’s an expert in trial monitoring, fair trial rights, and fundamental freedoms, with deep experience in cross-cultural lawyering, managing multi-stakeholder programs, and conducting research in challenging environments.

Most recently, she served as an International Legal Advisor at the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, where she led programs focused on trial monitoring, press freedom, and environmental defenders. She has authored or co-authored more than 15 reports published by leading international organizations.

Sasha Filippova serves as Senior Staff Attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), where she focuses primarily on accountability for human rights violations; gender justice, including sexual and gender-based violence; and governance. A US-based human rights non-profit organization, established in 2004, IJDH is a partnership of human rights advocates in Haiti and the US dedicated to tackling the root causes of injustice that impacts basic human rights in Haiti.

Prior to joining IJDH, Sasha served as a Senior Legal Fellow with the Center for Justice and Accountability, where she worked on litigating a crimes against humanity claim; and as a Legal Advisor and Fellow with the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, where she focused on confronting gender-based violence and promoting women’s empowerment around the globe.

She started her legal career as an associate at the A&O Shearman law firm, where her practice included international dispute resolution, public international law, and human rights. While there, she served as one of the lead counsel in a successful lawsuit against the Syrian government for its extrajudicial killing of war correspondent Marie Colvin, and advised clients on a variety of legal and policy matters, including interstate territorial disputes and UN Security Council reform.

Shibani Shah is a lawyer and international development professional with more than a decade of experience advancing rule of law and anti-corruption reform in conflict-affected and transitional areas. She has led multi-million-dollar USAID and State Department funded initiatives across Kosovo, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Vietnam, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, serving in senior roles with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative and USAID. Her work has ranged from shaping national legal aid frameworks and drafting legislation to improve access to justice, to advising on transparency in post-war reconstruction in Ukraine. She is also one of the many thousands who were affected by the Trump administration's destruction of USAID.

Andrew Solomon is a seasoned justice innovator and rule of law influencer with a passion for disrupting bureaucracy and dismantling barriers to change. For three decades, he has led in designing cutting-edge programs, building partnerships, and facilitating locally-led initiatives to close justice gaps, strengthen trust in justice institutions, and empower people and communities as an international donor, development practitioner, and lawyer.

His specializations in people-centered and open justice and court excellence have been shaped by his employment with such organizations as the American Bar Association, the American Society of International Law, the Brookings Institution, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Before founding the Rule of Law IDEAS Co-Lab, he served for over a decade as a Senior Rule of Law Advisor at the now dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where he led or contributed to the design of more than two dozen rule of law programs — from Serbia and Kosovo to Georgia to Somalia and Ethiopia, to El Salvador, to Uzbekistan and the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos-totaling roughly $500 million in foreign assistance awards. While at USAID, Andrew also led the development of the agency’s first-ever Rule of Law Policy and numerous technical tools and resources.

He currently serves on the boards of the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative and International Association for Court Administration (IACA). He is also a past board member of the Justice Action Coalition, a multi-stakeholder and donor platform to catalyze people-centered justice reforms around the world, representing the United States government.

Ginna Anderson has more than a decade of experience as an international human rights lawyer defending fundamental freedoms and fair trial rights, with specific expertise in health and human rights, human rights defender protection, and media freedom. She currently serves as the Associate Director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, where she leads a diverse team of human rights advocates to provide pro bono legal support, monitor trials, and advocate for the rights of individuals and communities facing persecution. Since joining the Center in 2012, she has supported journalists and human rights defenders facing criminalization, smear campaigns, strategic lawsuits against public participation (“SLAPPs”), and other forms of reprisals in every region of the world.

Lana Baydas is the Program Director at the ABA Center for Human Rights and leads the Center’s Proxy Warfare Project. Prior to joining the Center, she was a senior fellow with the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she led research and policy efforts related to closing civic space. She served at headquarters and in field operations with the United Nations, Crisis Action, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. She holds a Ph.D. and LL.M. in public international law from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a B.A. in political science from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

They spoke to Rule of Law Defenders in their personal capacities.

Marc Hawk is a dedicated public servant, advocate, and community leader. A J.D. candidate at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (Class of 2027), he was recently elected the Law Student At-Large on the American Bar Association Board of Governors. His career to date has been rooted in grassroots organizing, constituent services, and policy advocacy.

He previously served as Lead Campaign Director for The Outreach Team, where he oversaw field programs focused on civic engagement. He also worked as a Constituent Liaison in the U.S. House of Representatives, providing direct support to individuals navigating federal systems, and as a Training Associate at the Democratic National Committee, helping equip organizers with the tools to lead effectively across the country.

With a passion for public interest law, equity, and access to justice, he brings both personal conviction and professional experience to every role. His work is guided by the belief that advocacy must be people-centered, and he continues to champion causes that uplift underserved communities, support systemic reform, and empower the next generation of changemakers.

Barrett Holmes Pitner is a philosopher, author, educator, journalist, and founder of The Sustainable Culture Lab. In 2021, he published the celebrated book, The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America, which NPR named one of the top books of the year. In it, he describes how ethnocide — the destruction of a people’s culture while keeping the people — has shaped American life since the transatlantic slave trade. The destruction of African culture while keeping African people was a foundational component of the slave trade and of chattel slavery in the Americas. Through his work, research, and advocacy, Pitner has devoted himself to combating ethnocide by developing and cultivating a sustainable and nurturing culture for society. A current focus is to center the Reconstruction era of US history to better understand American society today and supply a framework for reconstructing it along lines more consistent with the Reconstruction amendments to the US Constitution.

Bennett Freeman has worked for more than four decades at the intersection of governments, international institutions, multinational corporations, responsible investors, and NGOs to promote human rights and sustainable development around the world. An innovative leader in the fields of business and human rights, natural resource governance, and responsible investment, he has played key roles in developing several multi-stakeholder initiatives and global standards that have strengthened corporate responsibility in industries from extractives to information and communications technology.

He is the lead author of Shared Space Under Pressure: Business Support for Civic Freedoms and Human Rights Defenders, published by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and International Service for Human Rights in September 2018.

A leading member of numerous advisory boards of public interest organizations, he also has served in senior management positions in the private sector, where he was responsible for environmental, social and governance research; developing investment themes for new funds; and directing shareholder advocacy and public policy initiatives, stakeholder engagement, and communications strategies related to human rights, labor practices, and sustainable development. In the Clinton Administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; as Senior Advisor to Under Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs; and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and chief speechwriter to the Secretary of State.

He currently consults for major corporations, foundations, and NGOs through Bennett Freeman Associates LLC, an Associate Fellow in the Global Economy and Finance program at Chatham House , and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Beth Van Schaack served as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department office, where she once served as Deputy Ambassador. GCJ advised the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights on issues related to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and the deployment of the whole range of transitional justice mechanisms in states emerging from violence or repression. Prior to returning to public service, she 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.

In addition to her current work as a Distinguished Fellow with Stanford’s Center for Human Rights & International Justice, she serves as a Commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law & Policy Group, a Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace & Security. With seven other senior U.S. government human rights mandate holders, she is a co-founder of The Alliance for Diplomacy & Justice, which works to center human rights within U.S. foreign policy.

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.