Head of United States programs and Director, Reparations
Special focus: Reparations, transitional justice in established democracies

Lisa Magarrell is a Senior Associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in its New York office, and Director of the ICTJ’s Reparations Unit. She has law degrees from the U.S. and El Salvador, and an LL.M. from Columbia University with a focus on human rights and international law. Since joining the ICTJ in 2001 she has worked on reparations issues in relation to a number of countries, including Ghana, Guatemala, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste, and in connection with the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court. She was extensively involved in developing policy on reparations in Peru and co-authored a book on this topic, as well as general papers on reparations policy and practice. Through the work of the Reparations Unit, she has also engaged this issue in a number of other countries where the ICTJ works. Ms. Magarrell has also provided technical assistance to two truth and reconciliation commissions, in Peru and Greensboro (North Carolina), from inception to post-TRC issues and served as a resource for policy-makers and the Assembly of First Nations in Canada as they moved toward the seating of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission there to address the legacy of forced residential schooling of aboriginal children. She co-authored a book on the Greensboro process and co-edited a volume of essays on the relation between the truth-seeking process and prosecutions in Peru. Her 20 years of human rights work prior to joining the ICTJ include representation of asylum seekers and migrant farm-workers in the U.S., human rights documentation and advocacy work with the Non-governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES-NG) and verification of human rights and other peace agreements in Guatemala as a UN political affairs officer.