Rebecca Schleifer Bio | Columbia Law School

Rebecca Schleifer

Areas of counseling expertise: International human rights, including health, disability, HIV/AIDS, women's rights, and LGBT rights.

Rebecca Schleifer is a globally respected advocate, researcher and scholar working in the field of health and human rights whose expertise encompasses human rights and development aspects of drug control policies, disability, ageing and HIV and AIDS. From 2002-2013, she worked as a researcher and then advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s Health and Human Rights Division, where her work helped define the contours of this field, particularly with regard to establishing core research methods, identifying and helping to set the scope of applicable standards, and opening up new sites for action and policy change in national and international settings. She currently works as an expert consultant at the UN Development Program providing research, policy, and substantive advice on HIV-related human rights issues and on human rights and development dimensions of drug control law and policy. From 2013-2015, she was a senior fellow with the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale University. She has also worked with migrant farm workers in Florida and Washington, litigating cases on wages, working conditions and occupational health and safety.

Ms. Schleifer has taught at the university level in the US (Barnard College of Columbia University) and has also taught in Colombia (University of Los Andes Faculty of Law, Bogotá). She has written articles on international law, health and human rights. Her most recent publications cover autonomy and legal capacity of older persons; the right to health in prison; the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution in the U.S.; and compulsory drug detention in China and South East Asia. She has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard-Radcliffe College, and a law degree and a masters in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Please contact Rebecca at Rebecca.A.Schleifer@gmail.com to make a counseling appointment. Please e-mail your resume to Rebecca before your appointment.