Leslie Haskell serves as counsel, researching and advocating on international justice issues relating to universal jurisdiction, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court.
 
Haskell first joined Human Rights Watch in 2007 as a researcher and spent nearly four years working on Rwanda, primarily on justice and reconciliation after the 1994 genocide. Haskell conducted extensive field research on Rwanda’s community-based gacaca courts – responsible for trying more than one million genocide suspects – and the conventional court system. She carried out research in West Africa in 2011, including election-related violence in Nigeria and sexual violence against women fleeing the Cote d'Ivoire for Liberia. Haskell also advised on the campaign to bring to justice the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, now living in Senegal.
 
Before joining Human Rights Watch, she worked as a lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. She also previously worked as a criminal defense and litigation attorney in the United States. Haskell is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and has degrees in international relations and French from Northwestern University.