Legal Advisory Council

Legal Advisory Council

Carlos Castresana Fernandez, is a Project Coordinator of the UN Office on Drugs & Crime, Mexican Regional Office.  He is also Visiting Professor and Director of International Human Rights Programs at the USF Center for Law and Global Justice.  In 2005, he was appointed Prosecutor of the Spanish Supreme Court.  Professor Castresana authored the formal complaint and subsequent reports in the Argentine case and the Pinochet case before the Spanish Audiencia Nacional.  Professor Castresana serves as an expert in international legal cooperation and other issues in Europe and Latin America.  He received the National Human Rights Award in Spain in 1997, was awarded a Doctorate Honoris causa from the Guadalajara University, Mexico in 2003.  He received his law degree from the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.

Sandra Coliver, Esq. is the Senior Legal Officer of Freedom of Information & Expression for the Open Society Justice Initiative.  Ms. Coliver has worked in the Human Rights field since 1979 and was the Executive Director of CJA from 2001-05.  In addition she was one of the founding members of Amnesty International USA’s Legal Support Network and a member of Amnesty International USA’s Board of Directors from 1992-96.  In 1996, she moved to Sarajevo where she worked for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Crisis Group.  She has taught human rights, humanitarian law, international law and women’s rights and has written and lectured extensively on these issues.  

Benjamin Cuellar is Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute of the Central American University, San Salvador, El Salvador (UCA).  The UCA was instrumental in leading the movement to stop the civil war and promote human rights in El Salvador.  The Human Rights Institute of UCA litigates human rights cases before the national criminal and civil courts and in the Inter-American system.  Mr. Cuellar and his staff attorneys have provided invaluable assistance to CJA on our Salvadoran cases.

Jim Eisenbrandt is a partner with the firm of Berkowitz Oliver Williams Shaw & Eisenbrandt, LLP in Kansas City.  He concentrates in the practice of white collar criminal law and parallel proceedings primarily in federal courts.  He is a frequent lecturer on criminal law topics and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.  With the ACTL, Jim has served as Kansas State Chair as well as Chair of the Federal Criminal Procedure Committee.  He currently serves on the College's Access to Justice Committee.  He is also a member of the litigation and criminal law sections of the American Bar Association.

Jennifer M.  Green is Law Professor at the University of Minnesota.  Prior to that Ms. Green was Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, where she specializes in international human rights law and litigation in U.S. courts.  She is a former director of Harvard Law School’s Clinical Human Rights Program.  She worked on human rights claims in the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the Inter-American human rights system.  

Paul Hoffman, is a partner with Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman, LLP and has been a leading civil rights and human rights attorney since 1976.  Paul has been lead or co-counsel on numerous Alien Tort Statute cases, including the landmark cases against Unocal and Philippine ex-President Marcos.  He chairs the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International and the ACLU’s International Human Rights Committee and is a member of the California Committee of Human Rights Watch.  He serves as an Adjunct Professor on the law faculties of Stanford, UCLA, USC, Loyola, Southwestern University, and the Oxford University/George Washington Program in International Human Rights Law.

Naomi Roht-Arriaza is a Professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law where she teaches international human rights and international law among other courses including corporate responsibility, trade and social issues.  She has written and lectured extensively on industry self-regulation in the environmental and labor rights areas.  Her publications include Impunity and International Human Rights Law and Practice (Oxford University Press, 1995) and The Pinochet Effect (U. of Penn. Press 2005).  She is a participant on several working groups of the American Society of International Law.

Amanda Smith is Pro Bono Counsel to Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in New York.  Ms. Smith's pro bono work includes asylum and immigration representation, criminal defense, homelessness and domestic violence advocacy and human rights litigation.  She was part of CJA’s Mehinovic v. Vukovic team that obtained a $140 million judgment on behalf of four Bosnian Muslims who had been detained and tortured in the former Yugoslavia.  She is currently co-counsel in CJA's two cases involving the Accomarca Massacre in Peru:  Ochoa v. Rivera Rondon and Ochoa v. Hurtado Hurtado.   Ms. Smith has a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford.  

Beth Van Schaack is an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara Law School, where she teaches international human rights and international law among other subjects.  While an associate at Morrison & Foerster, she worked extensively on CJA’s case against two Salvadoran retired generals (Romagoza Arce v. Vides Casanova) and on the case on behalf of John Walker Lindh.  She is the U.S. Representative on Amnesty International’s Anti-Impunity Working Group.  She was a Soros Justice Fellow in the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague and then with CJA.