Julie Leftwich appointed Director of International Peace and Security Initiatives

Julie Leftwich has been appointed to the newly created position of director of international peace and security Initiatives at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. In this role, she will lead efforts to establish a Center for International Peace and Security for the College, to serve as a practice-based wing of the renowned Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights. The new center will work to support global organizations and institutions dedicated to advancing human rights, gender, peace, and security, and to build expertise in the field. It will expand international human rights opportunities for law students to directly support projects for global partners, facilitate policy-based experiences, help facilitate post-graduate employment opportunities with organizations in the fields of peace, security, gender, and human rights, and serve as a hub for scholarship.

“We at the College of Law are extremely excited to have someone of the caliber of Julie Leftwich joining our team, to help develop support for and establish a Center for International Peace and Security,” said UC Law Dean Haider Ala Hamoudi and Nippert Professor of Law. “As conceived, the Center will advance our strategic priorities in the areas of experiential education and international programming, respectively, and it will help further advance the mission of one of our premier centers of excellence—the Urban Morgan Institute.  I look forward to working with Julie to do this over the next couple of years.” 

“It is with a particular pride that we welcome the creation of the new international peace and security initiative to be directed by our distinguished graduate and former Morgan Fellow Julie Leftwich. Julie draws on a rich experience working with a number of nongovernmental organizations, as well as academic programs,” said Bert Lockwood, Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Director, Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights. “The project will afford an opportunity to assist the critical work of human rights activists, and to provide additional opportunities for our students to get practical experience. I look forward to working with Julie on these issues that our so important around the globe.”

Leftwich has extensive professional experience as an advocate, advisor, trainer, researcher, and writer for the political, justice, security, and civil society sectors. Before joining Cincinnati Law, she founded and served as the executive director of the Immigrant and Refugee Law Center, a non-profit that provides pro bono legal services across a spectrum of humanitarian needs for low-income immigrant and refugee families. Prior to this position, she worked with numerous non-profits and NGOs around the globe to advance gender, peace, and security including the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), Freedom House, U.S. Institute of Peace, Women in International Security (WIIS), One Earth Future Foundation/Our Secure Future, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), National Defense University, International Association of Women Judges, American Association of People with Disabilities, Internews, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Additionally, Leftwich has managed programs related to gender justice, women’s rights, and the rule of law in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. This has provided her many opportunities to advise, train, and publish widely on gender, women, peace and security, international human rights law, migration, gender-based violence, and human trafficking, with audiences that have included the judiciary, legal practitioners, law enforcement, the military, government, social workers, and religious and cultural leaders.

Leftwich has held adjunct professor positions at Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Cincinnati College of Law.  Her teaching focuses on women, peace and security, human rights, and refugee and asylum law.

Leftwich holds a bachelor of arts degree from Brandeis University, a master of arts degree in international relations and communications from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and a juris doctorate degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law.