Kathryn Sikkink

Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an affiliated faculty member at the Harvard Government Department and the Harvard Law School.  

She is an International Relations scholar best known for her work on human rights, international norms and law, transnational advocacy networks, and transitional justice.  Her books include: The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities; Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century; The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics (awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Center Book Award); Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America; Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (co-authored with Margaret Keck and awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order); The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance, (co-edited with Thomas Risse and Stephen Ropp), and (with Richard Price) International Norms, Moral Psychology and Neuroscience. 

Sikkink received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and has been a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina and a Guggenheim fellow. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.