Center for Reproductive Rights
Nancy Northup, President and CEO
Nancy Northup is President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization whose game changing litigation and advocacy work have transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies.
Under her leadership, the Center has played a key role in securing legal victories in the U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe and at the U.N. on issues including access to life-saving obstetrics care, maternal health, contraception, and safe abortion services, as well as the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage. With offices in Colombia, Kenya, Switzerland, and the U.S., the Center has built the legal capacity of women’s rights advocates in over 60 countries.
Nancy was previously the founding director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she litigated voting rights, campaign finance reform, and ballot access cases. From 1989 to 1996, she served as a prosecutor and Deputy Chief of Appeals in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Prior to that she was a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. She has held adjunct appointments at NYU Law School and Columbia Law School, and taught courses in constitutional and human rights law. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Nancy graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Brown University recognizing her achievements as an attorney and global reproductive rights leader.
A frequent public speaker, Nancy is quoted widely in the national press including The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post, and has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, FOX News, PBS, MSNBC, and NPR.
Catalina Martinez Coral
Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Center for Reproductive Rights
Catalina Martinez Coral is a feminist from Cali, Colombia. She is currently the Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Center for Reproductive Rights. She is a member of the Causa Justa movement and one of the plaintiffs in the historic ruling that partially decriminalized abortion in Colombia. She was one of lawyers who litigated the Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador and Manuela v. El Salvador cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
She is also part of the They are Girls, Not Mothers movement and was one of the litigants who presented the cases of that campaign before the UN Human Rights Committee. She previously worked at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a Human Rights Specialist.
Catalina holds two Master's degrees in public international law and international relations from the Universities of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po).
Salima Namusobya, Vice President for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights
Salima Namusobya is the Vice President for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights and an expert member of the Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). She was the founding Executive Director of the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, and previously served in various capacities at the Refugee Law Project, School of Law, Makerere University, and as Eastern Africa coordinator for a global project on International Law in Domestic Courts.
She is a lawyer who has specialized in human rights law and forced migration. She has vast experience in legal and policy development, research, litigation, and advocacy to advance social and economic rights – including reproductive rights especially on the African continent. She is a board member for some national and international human rights NGOs and is a member of the Uganda Law Society and the East Africa Law Society.
Rebecca Brown, Vice President of Global Advocacy, Center for Reproductive Rights
Rebecca Brown is the Vice President of Global Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Rebecca joined CRR in 2013 and leads its advocacy team in building human rights standards and seeking increased recognition and implementation of reproductive rights at the global level. Before joining the Center, she was Deputy Director of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), where she oversaw the Networks work on women's ESC rights, strategic litigation, corporate accountability and other programs areas.
Rebecca also worked on environmental justice issues at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and as U.S. Foreign Policy Fellow at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization. Rebecca graduated cum laude from CUNY School of Law, where she served on the CUNY Law Review. Rebecca received her B.A. in political science and women’s studies from Hunter College. Rebecca has published widely on reproductive rights, gender equality and ESC rights. She also served two years in the Peace Corps in The Gambia.
About The Center for Reproductive Rights
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
Since its founding in 1992, the Center’s game-changing litigation, legal policy, and advocacy work—combined with unparalleled expertise in constitutional, international, and comparative human rights law—has transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies.
Through its work across five continents, CRR have played a critical role in securing legal victories before national courts, United Nations Committees, and regional human rights bodies on reproductive rights issues including access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, maternal health, and safe abortion services, as well as the prevention of forced sterilization and child marriage.
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