Aya Fujimura-Fanselow joined the International Justice Resource Center as Staff Attorney in 2015. Most recently, Aya was based in Mexico City, where she worked on projects in the field of torture, reproductive rights, and human rights violations committed in drug detention centers (with organizations including GIRE, the US Human Rights Network, and Open Society Foundations).
Prior to relocating to Mexico, Aya worked as a Crowley Fellow and adjunct professor at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School, where she designed and managed a project investigating the human rights violations resulting from the excessive and arbitrary use of pretrial detention in Bolivia. As part of this project, she taught a law school seminar and led a series of fact-finding trips to Bolivia. Aya also designed advocacy efforts and was lead author on: “We are Left to Rot: Arbitrary and Excessive Pretrial Detention in Bolivia.”
Before that, at the International Center for Transitional Justice, first in New York and subsequently at ICTJ’s in-country office in Kathmandu, Nepal, Aya focused on gender and transitional justice. In Kathmandu, she coordinated all gender and children related activities, and led initiatives to advocate for transitional justice processes, including a proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to ensure accountability for gender-based crimes committed during Nepal’s armed conflict. She also developed training manuals and led “Training of Trainers” programs to strengthen the capacity of civil society groups.
Previous to that, as Legal Adviser for International Litigation and Advocacy in the international Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, she developed and implemented advocacy and litigation strategies for reproductive rights cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission and Court, and United Nations bodies.
Immediately after law school, as a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at Bread for the City in Washington, D.C., she provided legal counsel to women and families, primarily Latino immigrants.
Aya graduated from Fordham Law School, where she was a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law and Ethics, the recipient of the National Association of Women Lawyers Award for Outstanding Law Graduate, the Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award Magna Cum Laude and the Post-graduate Tolan Fellowship in Human Rights. She graduated Cum Laude with Honors from Bryn Mawr College. Aya is admitted to the State Bar of New York.