On behalf of the IntLawGrrls editorial team, I’m delighted to announce several transitions at IntLawGrrls this week.  We have three terrific senior editors joining our team: Danielle DerOhannesian, who has been serving as Submissions Editor since October 2016, as well as IntLawGrrls Jocelyn Getgen Kerstenbaum and Mallika Kaur.  Carla Cortavarria, who has been a Student Editor since last July, will be stepping into fill the Submissions Editor position.  And, after eleven wonderful years, I will be stepping down from the blog and leaving it in the capable hands of our expanding editorial team.  Thanks to our bloggers and readers for all of your support over the years!

Danielle DerOhannesian will intern this fall in The Hague with Global Rights Compliance before joining the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office as an Assistant District Attorney in November.  You can find her IntLawGrrls posts here.

Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum is Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she directs the Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic. She first blogged for IntLawGrrls just over a year ago.  You can find her IntLawGrrls posts here.

Mallika Kaur, who first blogged for us five years ago, is a lawyer and writer who focuses on international human rights with a specialization in gender and minority issues. In India, Kaur has worked on a range of issues including farmer suicides, female feticide, and transitional and transformative justice. In the United States, she has worked on issues including post-9/11 violence, policing practices, political asylum, and racial discrimination. Kaur has worked with victim-survivors of gendered violence since 2003, including as a crisis counselor, an expert witness, co-founder of the community-based non-profit, Sikh Family Center, and as an attorney for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors in the Bay Area, California. Working with local civil society, academic institutions, advocacy organizations, and government agencies, she combines research, advocacy, scholarship, and the law as an approach towards sustainable change. She was the Director of Programs for the initiative on Armed Conflict Resolution and People’s Rights, UC Berkeley (2012-2015). She has a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a JD from Berkeley Law, where she is a Lecturer. Kaur often writes for media and academic publications and is a regularly invited speaker and trainer on Gender Justice, Trauma-Informed Lawyering, Cultural Humility, South Asia, and International Human Rights.  You can find her IntLawgrrls posts here and here.

Carla Cortavarría is a rising 3L at Temple University Beasley School of Law. She is passionate about international human rights, specifically in the region of Latin America, as well as refugee law and children’s rights. Prior to law school, Carla interned at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) where she taught cultural-orientation classes to asylees and newly arrived refugees, and tutored refugee children. Last summer, Carla interned at the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ), a non-profit membership organization that strives to advance human rights in various parts of the world through its judicial members. She provided support to IAWJ’s Dominican Republic and Haiti programs on gender-based violence, human trafficking, and judicial corruption. This summer, she is excited to be interning for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in their Caribbean Protection Unit. This past year at Temple, Carla was Vice President for both the International Law Society and the Latin American Law Students Association. She also served as a Staff Editor for the Temple International and Comparative Law Journal (TICLJ) and focused her legal comment on crimes against humanity in Venezuela. As a 3L, she will be a Lead Research Editor for TICLJ. Her goal after graduation is to work in an international or public interest organization in Washington, DC. Carla is originally from Lima, Peru, but grew up in the DC Metro area.  She speaks fluent Spanish, advanced-level French, and some Portuguese.  You can find her IntLawGrrls posts here.