Tejal Jesrani serves as Director of the TrialWatch Project and Acting Director of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, and is a Human Rights Clinic Instructor at Columbia Law School. She leads TrialWatch’s global strategy on trial monitoring, litigation support, and advocacy in cases involving the criminalization of journalism, dissent, and human rights advocacy in the university network. Tejal works closely with civil society partners, law school clinics, and international mechanisms to challenge judicial harassment, fair trial and freedom of expression violations.

Prior to joining Columbia, Jesrani worked for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in various roles for 16 years. At the UN, she gained considerable expertise in providing policy advice on implementation of international conventions relating to trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and other transnational crimes, supporting intergovernmental negotiations, field level capacity building and more recently, applied research in transnational crime and criminal justice.

Earlier in her career, Jesrani worked in the areas of immigration law, international human rights and international criminal law. She was a Dean’s Fellow at the War Crimes Research Office, worked as an Attorney Advisor at the United States Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review and at Human Rights Watch as Women’s Rights Associate.