Priya Pillai is an international lawyer, with over two decades of expertise in the areas of public international law, international human rights, transitional justice, peace and conflict, and humanitarian issues. She leads the Asia Justice Coalition secretariat, having been involved in its inception, and which is focused on international justice and accountability in Asia.
Dr. Pillai has worked in national and international institutions, including at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) relating to trials in the aftermath of the conflict in the Balkans, and on various humanitarian issues globally while at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) headquarters in Geneva. She has been involved in different aspects of peace and transitional justice initiatives, in South and South-East Asia, and has written and advocated on these issues regularly. She is a contributing editor at the international law blog Opinio Juris.
Dr. Pillai holds a PhD in international law from the Graduate Institute, Geneva, an LL.M from New York University School of law as a Global Public Service Scholar, and obtained her first law degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore.
Selected publications and editorials
- Co-Editor, The Rohingya Crisis: Humanitarian and Legal Approaches, Routledge (December 2022)
- Author, “A “Patchwork Quilt” of Fact-finding and International Accountability in Myanmar” in The Rohingya Crisis: Humanitarian and Legal Approaches, Routledge (December 2022), pp. 163 – 185
- Contributor, US-Asia Law Institute, New York University School of Law, USALI Perspectives
- Author, “Crystallizing Complementarity: A New Gambit?” in Stahn & da Silva (eds), The International Criminal Court in its Third Decade: Reflecting on law and Practices, Brill Nijhoff, (December 2023), pp. 308 – 318
- “Expanding the scope of provisional measures under the Genocide Convention”, The Cambridge Law Journal, Volume 79, Issue 2, July 2020, pp. 201 – 204 [Link]
- Quoted in: The Economist [Link], The Guardian [Link], Wall Street Journal [Link], Int’l Bar Association [Link], The Washington Post [Link]
- Opeds:
- “India’s cruel exercise in exclusion could leave millions stateless”, The Washington Post, 1 August 2019 [Link]
- “Philippines: justice and accountability, post elections“, The Interpreter (Lowy Institute), 18 May 2022 [Link]
- “Facebook Must Walk the Talk on Myanmar”, Op-ed, Al Jazeera, 4 September 2020 [Link]