Christine Ryan

Dr. Christine Ryan (@ChristineRiain) is  an international human rights lawyer and gender expert. She is the Associate Director for Religion and Reproductive Rights at the Law, Rights, and Religion Project (@LawRtsReligion) at Columbia Law School. The project is a law and policy think tank that promotes social justice, freedom of religion, and religious pluralism. She has an extensive background in religious freedom and gender justice law.

She is  a former legal director of the Global Justice Center  where she led the team’s legal work on abortion rights, gendered approaches to mass atrocities, and feminist multilateralism.

Previously Christine was the senior legal advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, where she directed the mandate’s research and reporting, integrating gender analysis throughout. She also previously worked as a human rights advisor with the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Ireland, and as Director of the human rights coalition, Impact Iran. She consults widely for states and civil society organizations on international human rights and gender.

Christine earned her doctorate on abortion, feminist theory, and international human rights law at Duke Law School where she won numerous awards and fellowships for her research including from the Fulbright Commission and the American Society of International Law.

Christine completed her LLM with distinction at University College London, UK, and her BCL in Law & Irish with distinction at University College Cork, Ireland.