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.