Janet Benshoof

Janet Benshoof (born 1947, in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota) is an American human rights lawyer, and President of the Global Justice Center.

She graduated from the University of Minnesota summa cum laude, and from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor. She has taught human rights law at Bard College and Harvard Law School.

She established landmark legal precedents in the U.S. Supreme Court and international forums. She launch successful legal efforts from the approval of emergency contraception for women by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to the application of international rape law to ensure the rights of women in the Iraq High Tribunal prosecutions of Saddam-era war crimes. She also lectures and trains women leaders, judges, parliamentarians, and various UN bodies on implementing international human rights laws (such as CEDAW) and international humanitarian law, including women's rights to criminal accountability under Security Council Resolutions and by the International Criminal Court.