Alexander Papachristou is Executive Director of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, an international public interest law program of the New York City Bar Association, providing pro bono legal support to human rights, environmental, and investigative journalism organizations worldwide. He is the former president of the Near East Foundation, which empowers vulnerable communities in the Middle East and Africa to overcome conflict, migration, and climate change.

Alexander lived in Russia from 1989 to 1993, where he opened and ran the Moscow office of White & Case and wrote a column for the Moscow Times. From 1994 to 2007, he served as managing director and general counsel at NCH Capital, Inc. He also was board member and acting US CEO of Spinevision, a French company. He earlier was associated with the law firm of Clifford & Warnke in Washington, DC and served as policy assistant to New York Governor Mario C. Cuomo. He was law clerk to US District Judge Myron H. Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama.

Alexander serves on the board of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the European Commission Anti-SLAPP Working Group, and the advisory boards of Bard College Berlin and the Environmental Reporting Collective. In late 2011, The New Press published Blind Goddess: A Race and Justice Reader, which he edited. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University.

read more