People

María Cecilia Ercole

María Cecilia Ercole was the Wasserstein Fellow in Residence with the Human Rights Program and the Office of Public Interest Advising from September to December 2022.

Over the past 8 years, Cecilia has been a Human Rights Officer and an Analyst at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Beirut and La Paz. She has supported the work of the OHCHR Humanitarian Funds for Victims of Torture and Modern Slavery, the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, the Individual Communications Procedures of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies, and the OHCHR Technical Mission in Bolivia, including human rights monitoring and reporting during presidential elections. Additionally, as Analyst of the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, Cecilia conducted investigations and analysis of human rights and humanitarian law violations and abuses occurring in the context of the armed conflict in Yemen. She currently supports the OHCHR Sri Lanka Accountability Project as Analyst with a focus on transitional justice efforts.

Before joining the UN, María Cecilia worked in the private sector in Buenos Aires on investment and commercial arbitration cases. She also worked for national Argentinian NGOs advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities, LGBTI and asylum-seekers. She also worked for the CCPR Centre and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) in Geneva, and for the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in Washington, D.C., representing victims before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. She earned her law degree from the Buenos Aires University and her LL.M diploma from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.