Melina De Bona
Research Scholar & Litigation Associate
The Earth Rights Research & Action

Melina is a Research Scholar and Litigation Associate at the Center’s Earth Rights Advocacy program, working on the nexus between human rights and climate change. She holds a JD from NYU School of Law and a BA in International Studies from the University of Chicago (distinguished honors).

During her time at NYU Law, she specialized in Public International Law, with a focus on socioeconomic rights in Latin America, where she is from. As part of the Center’s Global Justice Clinic and UN Diplomacy Clinic, she worked on the right to water in Haiti and worked within the United Nations system as an environmental advisor to the Permanent Mission of a small island state. As a Center Fellow and Scholar, she interned for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and worked on legal empowerment lawyering models. She also served as a research assistant for various international law professors and practitioners and represented asylum seekers in family detention facilities across the country.

After law school, Melina spent a year working for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, specializing in international arbitration, white-collar crime investigations and sustainability.