Janet Lord joined the Center for International and Comparative Law (CICL) as executive director in November 2023. Prior to coming to the University of Baltimore, she served as chief legal counsel to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Lord holds a senior research fellowship at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, where she works to address gaps in international law, policy and practice on the rights of persons with disabilities. She has spent her career as an international human rights lawyer, working globally to advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
A lead drafter of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, she provided legal counsel during the treaty negotiations to governments, the United Nations and civil society organizations throughout the five-year drafting process.
She continues to provide legal counsel on international human rights law and inclusive development to the World Bank, the United Nations Office of Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protection, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Development Programme, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States Department of State, organizations of persons with disabilities and numerous other stakeholders.
Lord began her career working for the World Bank Group, where she served as legal counsel to the Bank’s International Administrative Tribunal and legal secretary to the Bank’s Appeals Committee. Thereafter, she served as legal advisor and advocacy director for an international non-governmental landmine survivor organization, where she worked to monitor the Mine Ban Treaty and led advocacy efforts on the rights of landmine survivors across the UN system.
Lord’s pro bono work and service to the community includes support to litigants appearing before national courts and international human rights courts and mechanisms. She was appointed for two consecutive terms to the board of Amnesty International USA where, in her final two years of service, she was vice chair and chair of the board. She is currently serving on the board of the US International Council on Disabilities and on an expert advisory panel on political participation at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
She has published books, journal articles, book chapters and monographs on a variety of international public law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law and disability law issues. Her recent scholarship appears in the American Journal of International Law, the Harvard Journal of International Law, the Virginia Journal of International Law, the International Review of the Red Cross, and the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law.
Lord holds degrees from Kenyon College, the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and the George Washington University Law School. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Kenyon College for her work in advancing international disability rights and disability inclusive development. She is a member of the New York Bar.