Pablo de Greiff, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, has been appointed Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice’s Project on Transitional Justice.  “Pablo de Greiff is not only the key figure in many of the international community’s major initiatives in this burgeoning field, but also one of the most respected and prolific scholars working in the area of transitional justice,” said Professor Meg Satterthwaite, one of the Center’s co-chairs.  “We are delighted that he has agreed to take over the leadership of NYU’s Project on Transitional Justice, in addition to his role teaching in this field at NYU Law.”

The Project on Transitional Justice seeks to maximize the opportunities for students at NYU School of Law to engage in intensive study and undertake internships and summer fellowships with leading organizations in the field.  It also brings guest speakers and prominent visitors to the School of Law and organizes an annual high-profile Transitional Justice Lecture in collaboration with the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Dr. de Greiff, who joined CHRGJ as a Senior Fellow last fall, is one of the leading figures worldwide in the this field. He was appointed as the UN Human Rights Council’s first Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence in 2012. He has already presented several highly-praised and influential thematic reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, dealing with: the importance of a comprehensive approach to transitional justice; current challenges for truth commissions; and prosecutorial strategies for transitional regimes seeking accountability. In addition, he has visited Tunisia, Spain, Uruguay, Burundi, and Sri Lanka, and has followed each with a detailed country assessment (Burundi is forthcoming).

From 2001 to 2014, Dr. de Greiff was Director of Research at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). He was previously a tenured faculty member at the State University of New York at Buffalo and spent a year at the Center for Human Values, at Princeton University.  He has lectured extensively, including at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, the European University Institute, and universities across Europe and Latin America. Dr. de Greiff is the editor or co-editor of ten books, and has published widely on transitions to democracy, democratic theory, and the relationship between morality, politics, and law. He is a native of Colombia and holds a Ph.D. in philosophy.