Elisa Marchi

Elisa is a legal advisor for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program. She is also a lecturer at the Human Rights Practice Program, where she teaches a course on decolonization, and a course on strategic litigation; in this latter, students can work on live cases and advocacy efforts before international human rights bodies. Her scholarly work is at the intersection of legal study, conservation study, legal pluralism, multiculturalism, collective rights, and decolonial pedagogy. She authored articles on Romani and indigenous peoples' rights and currently working on publications on the interpretation of the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, decolonization of human rights education, and biocultural diversity legal approaches.

Elisa holds a Master of Laws, graduating cum laude from the University of Florence (Italy), a Master's in Human Rights and Conflict Management at the University of Sant'Anna, Pisa (Italy), and a Ph.D. in Legal Studies at the University of Florence. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Kansas (U.S), Brunel University (London), Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (Oaxaca, Mexico) and the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona (U.S). Elisa has worked for several NGOs and legal clinics as a consultant and researcher in diverse topics, including minority and indigenous rights, environmental rights, transitional justice, the rule of law, democracy in the Middle East and North African region, women rights, and inmates' rights. Recently, she was a visiting human rights lawyer at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Washington D.C.) and a professor of practice at the Human Rights Practice Program.