Past Donia Human Rights Center Directors

DHRC Director 2020-2026
Steven R. Ratner

Steven R. Ratner is the Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. He teaches and writes in the field of public international law on a range of issues, including war and peace, human rights, foreign investment, the United Nations (UN), territorial and ethnic-based disputes, and business and human rights. He is also interested in the intersection of international law and political philosophy and other theoretical issues.

Ratner began his legal career as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State. He came to the Law School in 2004 from the University of Texas School of Law and was a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law from 1998 to 2008.

In 1998–1999, the UN secretary-general appointed him to a three-person group of experts to consider options for bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice. And in 2010–2011, he was a member of the UN’s three-person Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, which advised the secretary-general on human rights violations related to the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. From 2022 to 2023, he was a commissioner on the UN Human Rights Council’s three-person International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia. Since 2015, he has been a member of an international working group promoting the use of arbitration concerning business violations of human rights.

Ratner also worked in the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and at the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in The Hague. From 2009 to 2021, he was a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. He also is a counsellor of the American Society of International Law and a member of the American Law Institute. He has served as an expert on international investment law in various arbitrations. He established and directs the Geneva International Fellows Program.

Education/Degree

Princeton University, BA
Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études Internationales, MA, diplôme
Yale University, JD

DHRC Director 2013-2020
Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Kiyoteru Tsutsui was Professor of Sociology, Director of the Donia Human Rights Center and Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. More specifically, he has conducted (1) cross-national quantitative analyses on how human rights ideas and instruments have expanded globally and impacted local politics and (2) qualitative case studies of the impact of global human rights on Japanese politics. His projects examine (a) changing conceptions of nationhood and minority rights in national constitutions and their impact on actual practices, (b) global expansion of corporate social responsibility and its impact on corporate behavior, (c) experimental surveys on public understanding about human rights, and (d) campus policies and practices around human rights.

His research on globalization of human rights and its impact on local politics has appeared in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and other social science journals. His book publications include "Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan" (Oxford University Press 2018), and a co-edited volume (with Alwyn Lim) "Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalizing World" (Cambridge University Press 2015). He has been a recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, National Science Foundation grants, the SSRC/CGP Abe Fellowship, Stanford Japan Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, and other grants as well as awards from American Sociological Association sections on Global and Transnational Sociology (2010, 2013, 2019), Human Rights (2017, 2019), Asia and Asian America (2018, 2019), Collective Behavior and Social Movements (2018), and Political Sociology (2019).  

Education/Degree

PhD, Sociology, Stanford University, 2002
MA, Sociology, Stanford University, 1996
MA, Sociology, Kyoto University, 1995
BA, Sociology, Kyoto University, 1993