Julia Bleckner

Julia Bleckner is senior Bangladesh researcher and a senior health researcher in the Global Health Initiative at Human Rights Watch.

With over a decade of experience analyzing politics and human rights in Bangladesh, Julia’s research has documented enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture, labor rights abuses, gender-based violence, encroachments on freedom of expression, and abuses during the Rohingya refugee crisis. She has briefed numerous national and international legislative bodies and has advocated at the UN, EU, and many governments.

As a health researcher, Julia advised on global health policy and justice during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her current work focuses on environmental health and the human rights impacts of the global trade of pesticides and other toxics.

Before joining Human Rights Watch, Julia was a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh researching mechanisms to deter sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping missions and a consultant for the Harvard Program on Health and Human Rights.

She holds a Ph.D. with distinction in political science from Yale University, where she also received a certificate in climate change and health from the Yale school of Public Health, and a B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College.