Staff/Contact Us

Susan Deller Ross, Professor of Law, Director and Founder of IWHRC
B.A. Knox College; J.D. New York University

Susan Deller Ross is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Director and Founder of the IWHRC.  Before joining the Georgetown law faculty in 1983, she was Special Counsel for Sex Discrimination Litigation to the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Previously, she was Clinical Director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and an attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She has filed numerous amicus curiae briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court on women's rights issues and has testified at a number of U.S. congressional hearings concerning sex discrimination. She was one of the attorneys who represented Anita Hill in the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas congressional hearings.  In addition to founding and teaching in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic, she has taught Domestic Relations Law and Advocacy and Employment Discrimination Law and Advocacy in Georgetown's Clinical Programs.  She has also taught International and Comparative Law on the Women's Human Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Family Law, and Gender and the Law.

Professor Ross has published widely in the area of women's rights. Her recent books include Women's Human Rights:  The International and Comparative Law Casebook (2008) and Sex Discrimination and the Law: History, Practice & Theory (co-authored with Barbara Allen Babcock, Ann E. Freedman, Wendy Webster Williams, Rhonda Copelon, Deborah Rhode, and Nadine Taub) (New York: Little, Brown and Company 2d ed. 1996).  Her recent articles on international women's human rights include:

• Fact-Finding as a Lawmaking Tool for Advancing Women's Human Rights, 7 Geo. J. Gender & L. 331 (2006) (co-authored with Tamar Ezer).
• Polygyny as a Violation of Women's Right to Equality in Marriage: An Historical, Comparative and International Overview, 24 Delhi L. Rev. 22 (2002).

Professor Ross also speaks regularly to audiences around the world.  Her recent presentations include:

• Implementation and Enforcement of International Women's Human Rights Treaties
  University of Tana
  Antananarivo, Madagascar
• Implementation and Enforcement of International Women's Human Rights Treaties
  Guatemala Judicial School
• Advancing Women's Human Rights Through Legal Change:  The Value of Gender Expertise
  Keynote address for Inaugural Program, Master's Degree in Gender, Women's Rights, and Access to Justice
  San Carlos University Law School
  Guatemala City, Guatemala
• Expert Consultation on Litigation:  Using International Human Rights Treaties to Enforce Reproductive Rights
  Center for Reproductive Rights New York, NY
• Advancing Women's Human Rights Through Equal Protection and Equality Guarantees in National, Regional, and International Human Rights Instruments
  Global Alliance for Justice Education Inaugural Conference
  Kerala, India
• Legal Mechanisms to Remedy Discrimination
  Conference on Institutional Mechanisms for the Protection of Human Rights at the Lithuanian Constitutional Court
• Legal Remedies Under U.S. Law for Sexual Harassment and Domestic Violence
  Police Academy
  Vilinus, Lithuania
• Foreign and International Experience in the Protection of Women's Rights
  Keynote address to the Mongolian Women's Rights Seminar
  Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Amy Senier,  Supervising Attorney & Teaching Fellow
J.D., Northeastern University School of Law; M.A.L.D., The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University

Amy Senier is the Clinical Teaching Fellow in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. Amy comes to the clinic after four years of practice in the International and Litigation Departments of Foley Hoag, LLP, where she represented sovereign states in disputes arising from ethnic cleansing, transboundary environmental harm, and maritime delimitation. As an associate, Amy also represented victims of domestic violence in obtaining abuse prevention orders from Boston municipal courts and individuals seeking asylum and relief from removal from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amy was also a member of the legal team that mounted the first successful district court and appellate challenges to the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (Gill v. OPM, C.A. 10-2214 (1st Cir. May 31, 2012)). In 2012, Amy was honored for her pro bono work by both the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice as well as the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation ("PAIR") Project. Prior to joining Foley Hoag, Amy interned and consulted for a number of individuals and entities including: the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Honorable Norman Stahl of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, the Legal Resources Center (Johannesburg), the Brennan Center for Justice (contributing to the defense of an alleged "enemy combatant"), and Physicians for Human Rights (contributing to Epidemic of Inequality: Women's Rights and HIV/AIDS in Botswana & Swaziland (2007)). Her publications on international human rights and international criminal law have appeared in PROTECTING HUMANITY: ESSAYS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY IN HONOUR OF JUDGE NAVANETHEM PILLAY (Martinus Nijhoff, 2010), INTERNATIONAL LEGAL MATERIALS, ASIL Insights, PRAXIS: THE FLETCHER JOURNAL OF HUMAN SECURITY, ALNAHKLAH, and SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES. Amy received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law and her M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Prior to law school, Amy served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia.

Esther Sollenberger, Executive Assistant
B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology, Franklin & Marshall College

Esther Sollenberger is the Executive Assistant for both the International Women's Human Rights Clinic and the Domestic Violence Clinic, where she manages the day-to-day operations of both.  Her work for the clinics includes referral and docket monitoring for the Domestic Violence Clinic, planning the annual fact finding trips for the International Women's Human Rights Clinic, and providing financial and administrative support for both.