December 17, 2024 — New York
Christen Broecker, a leading expert with substantial experience pressing governments and international organizations to more effectively address serious human rights crises around the world and counter religious intolerance and discrimination, has been named Director of American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI).
Broecker, who had been JBI’s Deputy Director, succeeds Felice Gaer, who died Nov. 9 after leading JBI since 1993. Broecker will continue the Institute’s mission to promote greater respect for universal human rights worldwide. It is the only human rights division within a major Jewish organization.
“We are fortunate to have Christen at the helm of JBI at a time when its formidable voice in human rights, especially at the UN, demands to be heard more than ever,” AJC CEO Ted Deutch said. “Christen has played a crucial role in JBI’s work, including its efforts to track and draw the attention of UN figures to rising global antisemitism as a human rights issue and ensure that widespread abuses in places like Iran and Russia remain in the spotlight. There is no one better suited to build on JBI’s remarkable combination of subject-matter expertise and moral authority.”
Broecker joined JBI in 2010 and became Deputy Director in 2016. She is the author of numerous publications on U.S. foreign policy and human rights and UN human rights mechanisms, including as co-editor, with Gaer, of The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World (2013).
Under Gaer’s leadership, Broecker played a key role in JBI’s efforts to provoke more effective responses by governments and the UN to rights crises including in Afghanistan, China, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, and Venezuela, while encouraging governments to reform and strengthen human rights mechanisms’ effectiveness and credibility.
In addition to her work on several JBI reports demonstrating the human rights impact of rising global antisemitism, Broecker is also a lead author of a UN policy paper on combating Holocaust denial and genocide denial, and a manual on human rights and prevention of genocide produced by JBI in cooperation with the Office of the UN Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide.
Broecker has also successfully urged social media companies to apply their content moderation policies consistently and to remove harmful online content including Holocaust denial in line with human rights standards.
Prior to joining AJC, Broecker was the NYU Fellow at Human Rights Watch, where she focused on Indonesia. She received a B.A. in Peace, War, and Defense and International Studies from the University of North Carolina, as well as a J.D. and LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University, where she was an Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar.
AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) works to secure more effective protection for the human rights of all, including catalyzing action to combat religious persecution and all forms of discrimination, prevent genocide, and curb widespread violations by authoritarian governments, issues of central importance to the Jewish community and beyond. We protect human rights around the world by engaging with governments, diplomats, the United Nations and other international organizations, corporations, and civil society partners. Learn more at https://www.ajc.org/issues/human-rights.
