Hilary Stauffer
HILARY STAUFFER
Advisory Director
Hilary is an international lawyer with extensive experience working on projects in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Asia. Her specialties include international law, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. She has a B.A. in International Affairs and a J.D. with a concentration in International Law.
Currently, she is the Head of the Kyiv hub office for OCHA Ukraine. Her primary responsibility is coordinating the humanitarian response in the central and northern part of the country, working with an excellent team of long-serving and surge staff in Ukraine to help scale up the delivery of humanitarian aid for those affected by the conflict.
Previously, she was posted to the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, where her primary responsibility was overseeing reporting needs for the OCHA Iraq office and serving as the secretariat of the Humanitarian Country Team in Baghdad. A major focus was helping to coordinate strategies to serve the needs of Iraq's millions of IDPs that still remain after the conflict with ISIS, through engagement with the Government of Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government, UN Agencies and NGOs.
Prior projects have included research into the effects of conflict-related sexual violence, explorations of the legal framework applicable to mercenaries, examinations of different interpretations of freedom of expression and analysis of the international law relating to armed drones.
Hilary has previously worked in diplomacy in Geneva, as an aid worker in Liberia, an NGO executive in Singapore, and a legal officer with the United Nations International Labour Organization. More recently, she has served as a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and as Deputy Director of Reprieve UK’s human rights and counter-terrorism team.
Since 2013, she has advised law firms, think tanks and international organizations in London, Geneva, New York, and Brussels on issues relating to international humanitarian law, business and human rights, and the promotion of democracy. Hilary regularly mentors young women on paths they could take to break into foreign policy and international law.
