Susan Benesch

Visiting Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law
Event Speakers

Susan Benesch is Visiting Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, and Senior Legal Advisor at the Center for Justice and Accountability. Professor Benesch earned a B.A. in history from Columbia College, winning high honors and the Henry Evans prize for scholarship in modern history. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a member of the Prison Clinic, and a Team Leader for the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. Also during law school, she served as law clerk in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, split a summer between the Israeli Supreme Court and the Palestinian human rights group Mandela, and worked as a consultant to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). In 2000, Susan was awarded the Robert L. Bernstein fellowship in International Human Rights to work in the asylum program of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. She went on to Amnesty International USA, where she worked as Refugee Advocate and then directed the AIUSA Refugee Program, before coming to CALS. Between college and law school, she was a journalist abroad. She was chief staff writer in Haiti for the Miami Herald before, during and after the 1994 U.S. invasion, and has reported from countries including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, and Russia for other newspapers and magazines. Her recent publications include “The Ever-Expanding Material Support Bar: An Unjust Obstacle for Refugees and Asylum. Seekers,” Interpreter Releases, Vol. 83, No. 11, at 466 (Mar. 13, 2006) (with Devon Chaffee); “Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech” World Policy Journal, Summer 2004, at 62; “Friendly Settlement in Human Rights Cases,” in L.C. Vohrah et al (eds.), Man's Inhumanity to Man, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2003 (with W. Michael Reisman); and “Effective Command,” Legal Affairs, Sept.-Oct. 2002.