Nicole Barrett is the Director of the Joint International Justice and Human Rights Clinic at Osgoode Hall and University of British Columbia Law Schools. She was previously a Trial Lawyer and a Legal Officer for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague and a Senior Scholar in Residence at New York University Law School’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, where she directed legal projects with international criminal courts and tribunals.
In 2015, Nicole was in Chad to monitor the continuing trial of 21 former government agents who stand accused of mass murder and torture while serving under former Chadian president Hissène Habré from 1982 to 1990. Read more about Nicole's experience in Chad.
From 2013-2014, Nicole was a member of the National Task Force on the Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada convened by the Canadian Women’s Foundation. She has directed major projects on human trafficking prevention for the Canadian government and has presented on human trafficking and corruption topics in international fora. Nicole has testified before government ministers and international human rights bodies on gender discrimination and anti-human trafficking laws and practices in many countries.
Before moving to Vancouver in 2009, Nicole served as an international humanitarian law advisor for the defense of several Guantanamo detainees and monitored military commissions in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for Human Rights First. She began practicing law at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City in 2003, where she specialized in complex criminal litigation and was a member of the Human Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association. From 2001-2003, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable John T. Noonan in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Nicole has a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the Articles Editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. She also has a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University, cum laude, and a Bachelor in Arts in International Relations from Stanford University. Before law school, Nicole directed programs to promote democratic reform in Eastern Europe for the Soros Foundations in both Prague and New York City.