ATLAS is an active global community of female-identifying lawyers, activists, and jurists with expertise in various facets of public international law. Initially set up in 2012, ATLAS was born out of a need to combat an entrenched old boys’ network which provided more opportunities to men at all levels, while under-valuing female contributions. In many instances, these male-centred structures continue to undermine women’s confidence to demand proper acknowledgement and remuneration for their contribution, limit their ability and willingness to remain in the profession, and exact high personal costs.
ATLAS creates a space where women in our field can reach out to each other for information, career advice, mentoring, and more general support. ATLAS is here to support women as we work to reach our full potential and, in so doing, to rebuild the cultural architecture of our professional spaces to better accommodate and support female ambition and success.
Our Mission
To empower, support, and connect women working in, or embarking on, a career in public international law.
Our Vision
To grow a dynamic community that works to ensure that women are represented, valued, and supported at all levels of the international legal profession.
Values
Empowerment
Intersectionality
Community
ATLAS Leadership
Sareta Ashraph
Sareta is a barrister specialised in international criminal, humanitarian, and human rights law. She has worked for various UN bodies mandated to examine alleged violations of international law in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Israel, and Palestine. She has worked as a defence lawyer at the International Criminal Court and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Sareta has a particular focus on the gendered commission and impact of international crimes, notably genocide.
Sareta first created ATLAS in 2012, after a series of events made it clear that - while the world of public international law was filled with intelligent, hard-working, and slightly exhausted women- very few were moving up the ladder to more senior positions. Her exacts words are unprintable, but ATLAS is the result.
Michelle Staggs Kelsall
Michelle is a legal academic at SOAS (University of London), specialising in public international law and human rights. She is qualified to practice in New South Wales, Australia (though it’s unlikely she’ll ever do so). This follows over a decade's experience working on applied research projects (monitoring war crimes trials) and with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia.
Michelle was one of the slightly exhausted (read: incredibly sleep-deprived) women Sareta knew, trying to juggle a full-time career in international law with raising two kids. She joined Sareta in her mission to form ATLAS because...well, despite the expletives she knew Sareta was really on to something.
Chiara Redaelli
Chiara is a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Law School and Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Her areas of expertise include international humanitarian law, jus ad bellum, and international human rights law. She worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangladesh and China. In September 2018 she She defended her PhD in public international law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Chiara has been an ATLAS member since 2016.
Jessica Lacey
Jessica is a legal editor based in Leiden. She worked as a commercial litigation solicitor in Dublin before moving to the Netherlands in 2017. Jessica has an LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University where she specialised in international criminal law. She interned with a defence team at the ICTY and worked with a human rights NGO focusing on UN refugee resettlement. She is also qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales. Jessica has been an ATLAS member since 2016.
Kathleen Cavanaugh
Prof. Kathleen Cavanaugh is socio-legal scholar and the Director of the Pozen Center for Human Rights and Faculty at the University of Chicago (SSD/Human Rights). She holds a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics & Political Science (1997) and a LL.M (Distinction) from the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland (1998). Her areas of expertise include: nationalism, ethnic conflict, political violence, states of emergency, narratives on Islamic law and rights, freedom of religion and militant democracy. View more details on her work here.
Danya Chaikel
Danya is a Canadian lawyer based in The Hague, specialising in international criminal law. She practised family, criminal, and human rights law in Canada, and has over a decade of experience at international tribunals and courts, NGOs, professional associations, and the UN. Danya is an officer on the IBA’s War Crimes Committee and recently consulted with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice to raise awareness around workplace misconduct, including sexual harassment, at international justice institutions. Danya, another slightly exhausted mother of two, found new strength when she joined ATLAS. She’s an #ATLASToo admin – supporting women, raising our voices against systemic discrimination and mistreatment, and advocating for healthy and safe workplaces for all.
Follow Us
