Déirdre Clancy
Director of International Refugee Program
Joined the Lawyers Committee in 2000

As the Director of our International Refugee Program, Déirdre Clancy focuses on enhancing refugee protection in Africa. She has managed a variety of projects, including helping to develop the first network of non-governmental organizations working on refugee issues in West Africa. Déirdre recently supervised the research and writing of “Refugees, Rebels and the Quest for Justice” (2002), the Lawyers Committee’s report on the physical security of refugees in situations of conflict, which focuses on the lessons that can be drawn from the humanitarian response to refugee flows in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the ongoing crisis in West Africa.

Before joining the Lawyers Committee, Déirdre worked on the issue of human rights in policing in the Council of Europe's Human Rights Division and at the Secretary General's Monitoring Unit in Strasbourg, France. Prior to that she was the founding coordinator of the first legal assistance service for refugees in Ireland, heading advocacy efforts around the passage of Ireland’s first refugee legislation and the development of asylum practice and policy.

Déirdre received her European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratization from the Universities of Padua, Italy (1998) and Robert Schumann University, Strasbourg, France (1998). She holds an L.L.B. (law degree) with honors from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (1994). Déirdre has published articles on human rights, legal and environmental issues in a range of political and professional publications and has lectured on human rights and immigration law in Ireland and the United Kingdom.