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Christina Cerna

Christina has been involved with Amnesty International since the mid-1970s when she co-chaired AIUSA adoption group #34 with Bernie Hamilton, who headed Minority Rights Group International. In January 1979 she joined the staff of the Inter-American Commission of the Organization of American States OAS), where she worked for 33 years until she retired at the end of December 2011. As an OAS staff member, she was not permitted to be a member of AIUSA or, as a US national, to work on cases involving the US. She became a member of the AIUSA Board in 2019, so that she could work on issues involving the US, especially gun violence.

She has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown U Law Center since 2005 and teaches an advanced Seminar in International Human Rights Law, primarily for graduate students. She is a Vice President of the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) and co-Chair of the “Human Rights in Times of Emergency” Committee of the International Law Association (ILA). She has been active in the American Society of International Law since the 1970s and is on the Advisory Board of International Legal Materials (ILM) since 1996. She was a consultant to ASEAN (2007-2014) re the creation of its human rights commission.

She blogs for Global Military Justice Reform and has published articles on international human rights law in journals throughout the world.

B.A., New York University; M.A., Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat, Munich, Germany; J.D., American U., LL.M., Columbia University, Mid-Career Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford University.