Faculty

Janet E. Lord is senior partner and director of human rights and inclusive development at BlueLaw International LLP, a veteran-owned international law and development firm. An international lawyer with more than 15 years professional experience, she specializes in democracy and governance programming in developing, transitioning and post-conflict countries and focuses primarily on designing and implementing human rights institution-building projects and inclusive development projects for marginalized populations. An expert in human rights treaty negotiations, she participated in all of the negotiations for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, serving as legal advisor to several lead governments, expert to the UN and legal advocacy advisor to Disabled Peoples International.

As part of her human rights and international development practice, she has designed, managed, implemented and evaluated projects in more than 25 countries worldwide, most recently in Russia, Hungary, Sierra Leone, Zambia, South Korea, Yemen and Iraq. She has worked with a variety of international organizations and donors, including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Disability Program, UNAIDS, UNDP, the United States Agency of International Development, the US National Council on Disability, the European Union, the World Bank, American Institutes for Research, Disabled Peoples’ International, Handicap International (France), the Harvard Project on Disability, Landmine Survivors Network, the Center for International Rehabilitation, and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES).

She has taught courses in international public law and international human rights law at the University of Edinburgh, American University’s School of International Service and the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is currently on the Disability Discrimination Summer School Faculty at the National University of Ireland (Galway) and serves as Research Associate of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. She has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and monographs on a variety of international public law, human rights and disability issues and regularly serves as peer reviewer for the Harvard School of Public Health journal, Health and Human Rights.

Recent publications include:

Shared Understanding or Consensus-Masked Disagreement? The Anti-Torture Framework in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 33 LOY. J. INT’L & COMP. L. 27 (2011).

The Law and Politics of U.S. Participation in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES: BEYOND EXCEPTIONALISM 199 (Shareen Hertel & Kathryn Libal eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011) (with Michael A. Stein).

Lessons from the Experience of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Addressing the Democratic Deficit in Global Health Governance 38 J. LAW. MEDICINE & ETHICS 564 (2010) (with David Suozzi & Allyn L. Taylor).

Monitoring the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Innovations, Lost Opportunities, and Future Potential, 32 HUM. RTS. Q. 691 (August 2010) (with Michael Ashley Stein).

Prior to joining BlueLaw International, she served as director of advocacy and legal counsel at an international non-governmental organization working in landmine-affected countries and as an attorney at the World Bank Group in Washington DC. She has also served as USIP Peace Scholar and International Rule of Law Fellow at the George Washington University Law School.

Janet Lord holds an LL.B. and LL.M. in law from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), an LL.M. in international and comparative law from the George Washington University Law School and a B.A. in History from Kenyon College. She is a member of the New York Bar.