Professor Claudia Flores Appointed to UN Working Group on Women and Girls

The United Nations Human Rights Council has appointed Clinical Professor of Law Claudia Flores to its five-member Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls. Flores, Director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and Faculty Co-Director of the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights, will assume the membership seat reserved for Western Europe and Other States. 

The Working Group seeks to eliminate discrimination against women in law and in practice by reinforcing states’ obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s human rights. It also works to ensure that women are centered in efforts to hold States accountable for implementing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights according to international standards.

The Human Rights Council — a body within the United Nations system responsible for promoting and protecting human rights — confirmed Flores’s appointment to the Working Group at the end of the Council’s 54th regular session in Geneva, Switzerland. The Consultative Group that nominated Flores noted her vast expertise and experience in the field of the mandate, both at the academic and practical levels.

“It is an honor and a privilege to join the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls,” Flores said. “I am deeply committed to the work of Independent Experts in the United Nations human rights system, and I look forward to supporting the Human Rights Council’s critical role in promoting state accountability. I have dedicated my career to advocating for remedies and reforms that address inequality, especially for women and girls — and I am eager to continue that advocacy with the Working Group.”

Flores’s teaching, scholarship, and law practice all focus on addressing global gender inequality and its intersectional manifestations. Flores has previously served as Gender Legal Advisor for U.N. Women and the U.N. Development Programme in Zimbabwe and East Timor, working to enforce states’ obligations under the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). She has also litigated cases in U.S. courts on gender discrimination, sexual harassment, equality in education, and health.

Before joining Yale Law School, Flores was a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School and Director of the Global Human Rights Clinic. In her advocacy, Flores has worked to support local actors in addressing topics such as domestic violence in Pakistan, reproductive rights in Cambodia, women’s political participation in Chile, gender and violent extremism in Tunisia, online hate speech in Kenya, human trafficking in Indonesia, and girls’ education in Zimbabwe.