Margaret Satterthwaite ’99 honored with American Bar Association prize for human rights work

Professor Margaret Satterthwaite ’99, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, has been selected as a recipient of the 2026 Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Global Human Rights Advancement. Awarded by the American Bar Association (ABA) Center for Human Rights, the prize honors those whose work has advanced the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was championed by Eleanor Roosevelt.

In its announcement of the prize, the ABA referred to Satterthwaite’s work as special rapporteur since her appointment by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022. In her reports to the council and to the General Assembly, Satterthwaite has identified emerging threats and issues related to judicial systems across the globe, including improper influence exerted on the judiciary by corporations and wealthy individuals; necessary safeguards to protect judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and community justice workers from intimidation and reprisal; and Indigenous peoples’ right to develop and maintain justice systems.

In her UN role, Satterthwaite has also spoken out against threats in the United States, such as executive branch actions targeting law firms, lawyers, and federal judges, and advocated for withdrawing sanctions on International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors. She collaborated with the special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants in documenting the federal government’s efforts to execute executive policy through US immigration courts.

Satterthwaite will receive the prize during a November 30 ceremony at the New York City Bar Association along with this year’s other recipient, Lawyers for Lawyers, a nonprofit based in the Netherlands. Since its inauguration in 2018, the prize has honored individuals and organizations such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Billie Jean King, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Lambda Legal, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

At NYU Law, Satterthwaite serves as faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights. In the Legal Empowerment and Judicial Independence Clinic, she gives her students the opportunity to participate in her work as special rapporteur. Previously, she directed the Global Justice Clinic.

Satterthwaite, the author or co-author of more than a dozen human rights reports and dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters, has focused her recent research on judicial independence, autocratization and the rule of law, legal empowerment, and wellbeing among human rights workers. After graduating from NYU Law, she clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the judges of the International Court of Justice. Satterthwaite subsequently worked for human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and the Commission Nationale de Vérité et de Justice in Haiti before joining the NYU Law faculty in 2006.