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.

Jasmine D. Cameron is an international human rights lawyer and visiting scholar at American University’s Washington College of Law. She most recently served as Senior Legal Advisor for Europe and Eurasia with the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, Justice Defenders Program. Previously, she worked overseas for many years, including as a staff attorney and legal advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice at the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she helped implement complex anti-corruption and rule-of-law initiatives, and as a political officer for the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, where she focused on the internal politics and elections portfolio. Her work centers on the rule of law, legal development in transitional democracies, and international human rights.

Fernanda G. Nicola is Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law, American University and Director of the Program on International Organizations Law and Development. Her research and teaching interests are in European Union Law, Constitutional Law, Comparative Law and Local Government Law. She is the author of numerous articles on transnational legal theory, European law and integration. In 2024 she co-authored, with Transparency International, the report, Protecting National Sovereignty: What is the Real Threat?, comparing the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act with Hungary’s National Protection of Sovereignty Law, which she also wrote about in Verfassung Blog. She is a member of the American Society of Comparative Law and served as the Chair of the EU Law and Comparative Law Sections of the Association of American Law Schools.

Melissa Hooper is an accomplished lawyer and policy expert with more than 20 years’ experience in accountability law, high-impact litigation, and global human rights advocacy.

Recognized for her leadership in framing and initiating actions to defend democratic principles and the rule of law, she has successfully litigated complex domestic and international cases, worked alongside Congress and the California state legislature to author and pass significant legislation, and managed coalitions and initiatives across government, academia, and civil society. She has testified repeatedly before Congress on issues of accountability for rights violations and corruption, democratic resilience, and national security; has led international teams to secure justice in significant human rights cases; and has contributed to policy development at the highest levels.

She also has worked alongside lawyers and watchdogs in numerous countries to develop legal and policy responses to anti-democratic government action, and initiated the first program at USAID on democratic backsliding. Her work imagines ways to build resilience and rule of law through developing new networks, seeding strategic initiatives, and designing novel legal actions.

In sum, her adventures in human rights and rule of law work have included releasing an innocent prisoner from death row, advising Pussy Riot, getting kicked out of two countries and yelled at by several autocrats.

Paul Smith is a Visiting Professor from Practice at the Georgetown University Law Center and formerly Senior Vice President at the Campaign Legal Center, of which he remains a board member and advisor. Until 2017 he was in private practice at the law firm of Jenner & Block LLP, where he had an active appellate practice for several decades, including 21 Supreme Court oral arguments in a wide range of cases but emphasizing civil rights and civil liberties issues. Among his important victories have been Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark gay rights case, and Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, establishing the First Amendment rights of those who produce and sell video games. He also argued a long list of voting rights cases in the Supreme Court.

He is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading lawyers in appellate litigation, media and entertainment law, and First Amendment litigation. Among his many accolades are the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award for his work promoting civil rights and civil liberties, and similar awards from the American Constitution Society, the DC Bar, the Legal Aid Society of DC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Lambda Legal, and the Human Rights Campaign.

Elisa Massimino is Visiting Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow in national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. She joined the Georgetown faculty in 2019 as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. Before coming to Georgetown, Massimino was a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Massimino spent 27 years — the last decade as president and CEO — at Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations.

She has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington, having testified before Congress dozens of times; written frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals; appeared regularly in major media outlets; and spoken to audiences around the country. During her leadership at Human Rights First, the influential Washington publication The Hill consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country; and Washingtonian magazine has repeatedly named her one of D.C.’s most influential people in foreign policy.

Hadar Harris is an award-winning international human rights attorney who has worked for more than two decades on a broad range of human rights issues in more than 25 countries. Prior to joining PEN America, she was the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, the nation’s only legal assistance organization devoted exclusively to supporting student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship. She also served as the executive director of the Northern California Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the innocent and to reform the criminal justice system, and for 13 years, she was the executive director of the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law. She started her career as executive director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus under the leadership of the late Congressman Tom Lantos.

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David Scheffer is a genuine legend of international criminal justice and the defense of a just rule of law. A senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, during the Clinton Administration he was the first-ever US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues and led the US delegation to the UN talks that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). He also has negotiated the creation of four other war crimes tribunals; chaired the Atrocities-Prevention Inter-Agency Working Group; was senior advisor and counselor to the late US Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright; and served on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council. His recent publications include the award-winning "All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals”; “The Sit Room: In the Theater of War and Peace”; and (with Mark Ellis) “The UN Charter: Five Pillars for Humankind.”

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With the shuttering of USAID and massive layoffs at the State Department, generations of institutional memory and expertise are being lost to the American people and to the people they have helped around the world. But not only that – the next generation of affected leaders committed to building and sustaining human rights and the rule of law must reconsider their futures as well.

In this two-part episode of Rule of Law Defenders, we talk with four professionals, ranging from early to mid-career, who do this work about how they see the future and how to shape it for the better.

Andres is a program assistant for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Carole is a senior program officer for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ravy is a program manager for Africa.

Jessie serves as program director for Asia/Pacific.

Thanks for listening. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and episodes!

With the shuttering of USAID and massive layoffs at the State Department, generations of institutional memory and expertise are being lost to the American people and to the people they have helped around the world.  But not only that – the next generation of affected leaders committed to building and sustaining human rights and the rule of law must reconsider their futures as well.  In this two-part episode of Rule of Law Defenders, we talk with four professionals, ranging from early to mid-career, who do this work about how they see the future and how to shape it for the better.