Christie J. Edwards
Christie Edwards is an internationally recognized and published legal expert with over twenty-one years of experience working on international humanitarian and human rights law, gender, international policy and advocacy, and international community development. Christie has led successful non-profit management and implementation programs, strategic planning, and grants management in senior leadership roles at national and international levels with prominent NGOs and international organizations.
Since 2017, Christie has served as the Deputy/Acting Head of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), addressing issues of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, and hate crimes. Previously, as the Director of International Humanitarian Law at the American Red Cross, Christie led ARC’s legal education, public, and youth outreach efforts on IHL, directly reaching over 60,000 people per year with a social reach of over 24 million. Finally, Christie serves as the Co-Chair of the International Organizations Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), Co-Chaired the 2021 ASIL Annual Meeting, co-founded ASIL's Women's Mentoring Program for over 700 participants worldwide, and serves on ASIL’s Executive Committee and Executive Council.
Christie has published law review articles on forced contraception as a form of torture, the cultural context of sex trafficking in China, the use of gender budget analysis to achieve educational parity for women and girls, legal advocacy strategies for women's rights in Morocco, and ISIL’s use of forced contraception as a form of torture. She also speaks regularly for local and international conferences on international human rights and humanitarian law issues. Follow Christie on Twitter @cjoye7.
Christie J. Edwards was profiled for ATLAS by Emilie Max, a researcher at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. You can read more about Emilie’s work at the end of this profile and follow her on Twitter @Mx_Emilie.
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What pulled you to a career in international law and what were your first steps?
When I was in university, I knew I wanted to do something “international” but I wasn’t quite sure what. I actually didn’t declare a major until a few years into my bachelor’s degree. I had done a study abroad program in Israel, and then a semester internship program in Washington D.C. The second day of my internship program in D.C. was 9/11.
Of course, that made everyone in the world think very differently about the United States’ engagement with the world at the time. It also made Americans think about how others viewed us and what was our role in multilateral institutions and in the international arena. It shifted everything dramatically. I spent that semester trying to figure out the best way for me to help the world focus on better respect for human rights, and on respectful engagement amongst the international community.
During that semester, we had a presentation by a human rights attorney who had done a lot of work overseas. He spoke with us about his organization and the work that they were doing. He said that one of the things that he loved most about being an attorney was that he got to advocate on behalf of people who couldn’t speak for themselves. They didn’t have the opportunity, or the rights potentially, to speak on their own behalf. As an attorney, he got to do that for them. Of course, many of the most marginalized communities are women and children, so he spent his career working primarily on advocacy for women and children’s rights. It was one of those “aha” moments and I thought “yes, that is exactly what I want to do.”
Immediately after I finished that program, I came to Geneva for another study abroad program where I focused on learning about international organizations and international human rights law. When I graduated from my bachelor’s degree, I decided to go to law school and went in with a specific focus on international human rights law. I remember that, during my first day of law school, a professor was going around the room and asking students why they were there. Most people didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do, while I was absolutely certain that I wanted to do international human rights law. I now recognize that having a very clear sense of motivation and direction is not always common amongst people going into law school.
A lot of people said “oh, you’ll change your mind, you’ll suck it up and go into corporate law like everyone else”, but I never changed my mind. I did stick with it. I actually chose to go to law school part-time, because I knew that, in going into public interest law, I probably wasn’t going to get paid very much. So, coming out of law school with as little debt as possible was going to be helpful. That also gave me a very unique opportunity to work for some of the amazing human rights organizations in San Diego, where I’m from, while I was in school.
I started working very early on for an organization called Survivors of Torture, International. It’s a torture treatment center for individuals seeking politically-motivated asylum and who had been through horrific circumstances. The immigration courts in San Diego also had a really wonderful program for graduating law students. As long as you had a supervising attorney, they would allow you to represent asylum clients in court. I got to represent my own asylum clients before I even graduated. Being able to work for this incredible organization – and getting to do real human rights work before I even graduated – gave such a very strong sense of clarity and purpose that this was exactly what I wanted to do and what I wanted to focus on. As I was learning about all the different human rights issues that existed, the scope of my interests certainly grew with it. It’s also been a process of perhaps narrowing things down a little bit.
After I finished my J.D., I was looking for a way to get some international experience because, at that point, a lot of the non-profit jobs required you to have that kind of experience. I actually applied to the Peace Corps and got accepted. At the same time, I applied to do my LL.M. at the American University in D.C. because they had the only LL.M. specialization on gender in the United States. I knew that was what I really wanted to focus on, and ultimately decided to do the LL.M. I ended up doing two specializations in both human rights and in gender and it was the best year of my life!
I worked with really amazing non-profit organizations and ended up eventually working with a women’s human rights organization afterwards. I was there from 2010-2013, working on a political advocacy program for women’s human rights in the Middle East and North Africa. This was immediately after the start of the Arab Spring – which was a really incredible time to be working there. Getting to work with all the incredible human rights activists and actors in the Middle East as they were trying to make a difference in the future of their countries during this period was absolutely amazing.
It’s wonderful to be able to advocate for those who cannot speak on their own behalf but I think that working with these amazing women during the Arab Spring made me much more humble and put much more of an emphasis on providing the opportunities and the platforms for these women to be able to speak on their own behalf. I don’t have to speak for them. They have more than enough to say on their own. They are extremely eloquent and brilliant. But, as an American and as someone who is definitely very privileged, I can make space to provide opportunities to highlight them and their work, to let them speak for themselves. And that has been one of the biggest lessons that I have ever learned, that I didn’t want to take their space.
What have been the high points of your career thus far?
One of the biggest achievements that I will ever accomplish in my life was the first asylum claim that I ever advocated for in court. I remember walking out of that courtroom thinking “If I literally do nothing else in my career, I just helped to save that man’s life.” It was just a powerful feeling, knowing that this man had been through hell and back. He’d been tortured and went through horrible circumstances; losing his family and having a bounty on him. If he went home, he would be killed the second he got there. Knowing that I had played a substantial role in ensuring that he could stay somewhere safe was one of the most incredible things that I could ever do. I hadn’t even graduated from law school at that point - it was incredible!
The first few years that I spent at the American Red Cross were also really amazing. When I started, we basically started a lot of new programs from scratch; adopted a new strategic plan and really shifted the nature of the work that we were doing. To be able to work with this really incredible team that was dedicated, super creative and enthusiastic was just so much fun. Literally, it was the most fun I’ve ever had at work – working on issues that we were really passionate about. Educating the public on the Geneva Conventions of 1949, working on issues that I personally believed in and cared about, such as gender issues, torture issues, protection of children and civilians, was amazing. To be able to see the rapid growth of these new programs and to be able to really impact the lives of people around the world was really inspiring.
I was a really young manager at that point. I was in my early thirties, so I learned a lot as a manager, as a professional, as a humanitarian advocate. I felt like it was the biggest period of growth for myself but, also, being able to be a part of this movement that was so much bigger than myself and had such an impact on the humanitarian community was a wonderful opportunity. A large part of our work and our programming was with young people. Most of them may have heard of the Geneva Conventions at some point, but to be able to go and do some basic educational activities – introducing them to the Geneva Conventions, explaining that they protect perhaps someone’s brother who just enlisted in the military or civilians in the communities where the conflict was happening – made so much sense to them. I loved witnessing these kinds of conversations, seeing participants really click and latch on to these concepts. The program used a peer-education approach, meaning that participants would go out to their schools and/or communities and take on their own creative approaches to these learning activities, such as flash-mobs, simulations and video or photo competitions. Young people would be able to speak to each other in a way that I, as this “old” person in her thirties, would never understand or be able to replicate. Teachers and educators can be very powerful but, sometimes, you learn the most from your peers – people who are on that learning journey with you and figuring it out together. It was an incredible process to watch.
Finally, and this is perhaps less of a traditional career accomplishment, I’ve been very involved with the American Society of International Law (ASIL) ever since I was in law school. One of my professors highly encouraged me to join when I was still a student. Later on, when graduating with my LL.M., I joined ASIL’s Women in International Law Interest Group (WILIG) Steering Committee. Right about that time, someone had donated a bit of money to the group to create a mentoring program for women in international law. The year that I was elected as Co-Chair of WILIG was the year that we launched the mentoring program. Putting this program together, which is now in its 7th year, has really impacted the lives of hundreds of women around the world. I’ve benefitted so much from the mentors that I had as a young adult and as a young attorney. To be able to create this program allowed me to give back and share some of the lessons that I’ve learned, back when I was the only person in my law school who wanted to do international human rights law. Sharing this information with women who are still in law school or just started their career is something that I’m really, really proud to be a part of. And I have been getting so much from these young women too! They ask questions where I think, “Wow, I need to figure this out for myself.” It always felt that I was getting as much from this program as I was giving.
What are some of the challenges/obstacles that you have faced, and how have you tackled them?
A valuable lesson that I learned early on was that, as a human rights attorney, you do need to know yourself really well and to be able to take care of yourself emotionally. When you spend all day, every day listening to these horrific stories about the most horrific things that people can do to each other, it takes an emotional toll. Fortunately, I worked at an organization that took secondary trauma very seriously and provided resources for the staff. I felt that I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing but, after a few years of working in that space, it became too much for me. I know that some people spend their whole careers doing this, and that’s wonderful. However, I just knew that, for my own sake, I needed to be one step removed.
Working with a women’s human rights organization in Washington D.C. after graduating from my LL.M. program was a great balance – to be able to support these women working in their local communities, providing them resources and expertise, whatever they needed to be efficient, but I wasn’t the one bearing the emotional burden of all of the issues that they were facing. I think that young attorneys starting their careers should know that that’s just normal. It’s fine to struggle, and there are wonderful resources out there to take care of yourself if or when it becomes too much to handle. It’s really, really important to know that you have people to talk to and the necessary support mechanisms in your life – whatever they may be – to make sure that you don’t burn out.
Although I didn’t face this too much earlier in my career, as I’ve gotten older and since I moved to more senior positions, I have come to face some of those gendered expectations about what a woman is supposed to be like in the workplace or how a woman is supposed to manage compared to a man. I guess I naively thought that, because I had made it to my late thirties without having come across those issues, “I’m safe, we’ve clearly passed that point in the world in which those gendered expectations or prejudices will be a concern.” Well, that wasn’t the case. I clearly just lucked out early in my career. They still exist. In many ways, women still have to work harder and smarter to be taken seriously, to be given a voice, to be given a platform. To push back on some of the older male stakeholders and counterparts that you might be having discussions with who may really strongly disagree with what you believe, what you stand for or what your organization is working on. So, being able to hold your ground and know that you’re competent, that you know the law, that you might have a specific mandate in your organization to uphold – even if they disagree with you because that’s the way that things have always been done or because of specific ways of working that benefit the patriarchy – is essential. It doesn’t have to be that way moving forward.
Having these confrontations can be scary and intimidating, which is why having women managers at the senior level, is so important. They can help younger women navigate these really tricky situations and back them up. At the end of the day, I refer some of the most horrible interactions I’ve had to my senior management; “If you don’t like what I say, please go to the woman who I report to. She will say the exact same thing.” Knowing that I could continue to hold my line and that my management supported me made me feel more empowered. My senior leadership would also give great advice on how to maneuver tricky situations or relationships that were new to me. The representation – and the right representation – matters!
I have one final example and maybe it’s sort of a personal one. I married someone within the humanitarian field but he’s not from my country of origin. In a place like Geneva, where there are so many international organizations, it’s extremely common because people meet in the field or through work and often don’t come from the same place. However, for me, having to navigate how to make a career work with a spouse from a completely different part of the world, still maintain a relationship and a career and find a place where we could both legally live – we still haven’t, it’s been a couple of years of living in different countries – is a lot of work. That has definitely impacted some of the career choices that I’ve made. It’s not to say that it’s been a negative impact. It’s a just been a huge emotional, financial and intellectual burden of trying to figure out how to make that work. But I can say that it is so worth it.
Although we’ve heard it a lot after the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, finding the right partner really is the best career decision a woman could make. Finding a partner who will support your work, who loves your intellectual capacities, who is willing to share equally the burdens of keeping or maintaining a home – or, in the case of long-distance couples, multiple homes – is the most important choice that a woman can make. No matter how difficult it is, how logistically challenging it can be, it is absolutely worth it! Because I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I do today without my spouse. He’s my biggest cheerleader and champion and is substantively brilliant, so I’m really lucky when I have a legal question! At the same time, I can help him strategize when he is navigating a work conundrum that is strategic or substantive or both. We really complement each other in that way, which is really nice.
Beyond the ones that you have just shared, do you have any other advice for people, especially women, who are embarking on a career in international law?
Having the freedom to fail allows for the taking of new and innovative approaches. Giving people the freedom to fail in the workplace is really, really important. Otherwise, you don’t try new things. If you don’t try new things and see how they go, you don’t make those mistakes that allow you to learn and grow. And ultimately, you might get the job done but not as effectively or creatively.
Focus on acquiring skill-sets. My career did not take a very linear trajectory. It’s kind of been all over the place, focusing on very different legal issues, but it has been strategic. One of the pieces of advice that I got quite early on was to not think so much about the jobs that I wanted but about the skill-sets that I wanted to acquire. Shortly after graduating with my J.D. degree, the economy absolutely tanked. I knew that working in the non-profit sector, learning fundraising skills and being able to navigate the development fundraising space was going to be really, really important. I found a couple of jobs, working in philanthropy and fundraising, where I could learn those skills; I learned how to do grant-writing and donor-management. I worked for a few years making sure that I knew the ins-and-outs of how to work with funders, donors and grantors. Later on, those skills came in so handy when I was in a management role, looking for funding to support the work that I was doing. Knowing how to write a good grant proposal has been really useful many, many times. Later on, at the Red Cross, my boss advised me to get government experience and I started looking for ways to get that kind of experience. Long-story short, I ended up at the OSCE where I have spent the last couple of years working in diplomatic arenas in a way that I had never anticipated. I developed numerous skill-sets that I definitely wouldn’t have had without this opportunity. There might be your dream title out there or your dream organization. However, you don’t have to get that job right out of law-school. Secondly, look at job descriptions. Figure out what kind of skills they’re asking for, and figure out how to get those skills – whether it’s through volunteer work or internships while in law-school. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be through a traditional job. It could be through a lot of different experiences. When you are a very well-rounded professional, it makes you able to apply for a much wider range of jobs. That also gives you more flexibility in your career.
Giving back benefits everyone. I have one last thing to share and it’s more of a personal reflection. No matter what jobs I’ve had, I’ve always found so much fulfilment in the volunteer work that I’ve done - whether it’s been with a local refugee organization or with ASIL starting a mentoring program. Sometimes, at work, even if you’re working on really interesting issues, the job can become a job - hard, not as nearly as exciting as it was on paper, and politically stressful. Finding something else that you are passionate about and that you can spend some time doing to give back, and that really enriches your soul, is a good way to stay motivated and stay resilient. It also allows you to meet people who you would otherwise have ever met and who will change your life in ways that you never thought was possible. It’s something that everybody should do if they can and to the extent they can – be it a couple hours a week, a couple hours a month or just a few days a year.
Christie J. Edwards was profiled for ATLAS by Emilie Max, a researcher at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. She also works as an independent consultant for international NGOs based in the Middle-East (Israel and Palestine, Lebanon). Émilie previously worked for four years as a Legal Officer for the Directorate of International Law of the Swiss Department of Foreign of Affairs, where she focused on international humanitarian law and international criminal justice. She was also a teaching assistant to Professor Marco Sassòli at the University of Geneva, assisting with his classes on public international law (BA level) and practice of international humanitarian law (MA level). Émilie holds an LLM from the Geneva Academy, as well as an MA in Middle-Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London, United Kingdom). She is fluent in French, English and German. Follow her on Twitter @Mx_Emilie.