Sandra Wisner

Sandra is the Director of the IHRP and teaches a clinical course on international human rights advocacy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She is an international human rights lawyer with experience in nearly every region in the world. In South Africa, she appeared alongside counsel of the late Nelson Mandela at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry to secure reparations arising out of a devastating police massacre. She also worked for the UN in Cambodia prosecuting members of the Khmer Rouge regime for genocide. Most recently, she worked for five years in Haiti partnering with the country's leading human rights lawyer to secure remedies for survivors of the UN-introduced cholera epidemic and peacekeeper sexual abuse. She has been periodically called upon to observe trials around the globe to ensure compliance with international human rights law. 

Sandra received her Masters of Laws from Leiden University, and her J.D. and Honours BA in International Affairs from the Universities of Windsor and Toronto. Her thesis explored the accountability of multinational corporations operating and sourcing from volatile areas. She publishes regularly on non-state actor accountability and extraterritorial obligations and speaks at various venues around the world, including Cornell, Harvard, Sorbonne, and the UN Human Rights Council. Sandra has appeared in the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Reuters, Vice News, and TVO. Sandra articled with Gowling WLG. She speaks both official languages.