Jared Genser (Español)
Jared Genser is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect to the Organization of American States, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Referred to by the New York Times as “The Extractor” for his work freeing political prisoners, he is also co-Executive Producer of a dramatic TV series based on his life being developed with actor and producer Orlando Bloom by Amazon Studios for Prime Video, which has 150 million viewers worldwide. Genser was previously a partner in the government affairs practice of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.
Genser has taught semester-long seminars about the UN Security Council at Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania law schools. He was an Associate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2014-2016, a Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy from 2006-2007, and was previously named by the National Law Journal as one of “40 Under 40: Washington’s Rising Stars.” His past clients have included former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Desmond Tutu, Liu Xiaobo, Elie Wiesel, and Aung San Suu Kyi. Coming from his experience freeing his first client as a law student, in 2001 he founded Freedom Now, a non-governmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide.
He holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
Genser is author of The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Commentary and Guide to Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2019). In addition, he is co-editor of The UN Security Council in the Age of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Times (Oxford University Press, 2011). In 2020, Genser was selected as one of three winners of the Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize from among 2,165 nominees from 135 countries. He is also the recipient of the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award, Liberty in North Korea’s Freedom Fighter Award, and the Charles Bronfman Prize. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. And he was selected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (Class of 2008).
Profiles – Print
- The Ripple Effect: Jared Genser, Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize Profile, December 2020
- Human Rights Hero Jared Genser on Dictators and the World’s Worst Prisons, American Lawyer Litigation Daily, March 15, 2016
- 5 Humble Humanitarian Heroes, Take Part, August 19, 2011
- DLA Piper Alum Launches Practice Focused on Humanitarian Issues, Washington Post, July 3, 2011
- “I’m an American:” When Democracy Advocate Nyi Nyi Aung Was Arrested in Burma, It Took a Determined Washington Lawyer to Get Him Home, Washingtonian, October 2010
- What It Takes: A Persistent Voice for Human Rights, Washington Post Capital Business, June 7, 2010
- Freedom Fighter: One Man’s Lawyer, John F. Kennedy School of Government Bulletin, Spring 2008
- A Friend in Need, American Lawyer, October 2007
- The James Mawdsley Story, University of Michigan Law Quadrangle Notes, Spring 2001 (Case Inspired Founding of Freedom Now)
Profiles – Television and Radio
- Sunday Profile, ABC Radio (Australia), June 30, 2013
Brian Tronic
Brian Tronic is Counsel at Perseus Strategies. He is a graduate of Penn Law School and holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia, where he double-majored in Math and Philosophy. After law school, he clerked for two years in the Vermont Superior Court, and then moved to South India to work at a human rights organization through the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India. He then served as the Crowley Fellow in International Human Rights at Fordham Law School, an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School (India), and the Supervising Attorney and Teaching Fellow at the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic at the Georgetown Law Center. He is a member of the Massachusetts bar and the District of Columbia bar.
Skylar Gleason
Skylar Gleason is the Liu Xiaobo Human Rights Fellow at Perseus Strategies. She graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan with majors in Political Science and International Studies, as well as minors in Spanish and Law, Justice, and Social Change. Skylar has served as an intern for the Washtenaw County Office of Public Defender, Perseus Strategies, and the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice. She studied abroad in Argentina and completed an honors thesis on the lingering effects of the 1976 Argentine military dictatorship. Additionally, Skylar is the self-published author and illustrator of the children’s book Finding the Monster Called Love, which benefits the International Children’s Heart Foundation. She speaks Spanish.
Michael Russo
Michael Russo is the Václav Havel Human Rights Fellow at Perseus Strategies. He graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan with degrees in History and Spanish and a minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. During college, Michael was committed to immigrants’ rights advocacy: he helped to lead a free English tutoring clinic that serves the Latinx community of Ann Arbor, and he worked with the U-M Law School to compose asylum petitions on behalf of migrants facing deportation. His honors thesis examined how United States foreign policy in Central America affects human rights and migration. His thesis received one of the Arthur Fondiler Awards for Best Undergraduate Thesis, as well as the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award. Michael speaks Spanish and Portuguese.