Commissioner Pratima Narayan

Ms. Pratima Narayan is a dedicated attorney with 18 years of experience advancing law, human rights and corporate accountability. She has built a career at the intersection of policy, advocacy and investigations, working to promote justice and strengthen global responses to human rights violations. Most recently, she served as a Senior Advisor in the Biden-Harris Administration, providing strategic counsel to the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice at the U.S. Department of State. In this role, Pratima helped shape U.S. policy on atrocity prevention and response, represented American interests in multilateral diplomatic engagements and worked to advance accountability for mass atrocities and other human rights violations globally.

Previously, as an Advocacy Director at Open Society Foundations, Pratima led U.S. foreign policy engagement on Asia and the Pacific, driving initiatives that integrated national security, human rights, environmental policy and economic reform. Before that, she served as Deputy Director of the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, overseeing transitional justice, atrocity prevention and antidiscrimination programs in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Europe.

An expert in investigations, crisis response and risk management, Pratima served as Chief of Investigations for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, where she led documentation efforts on a range of human rights violations, including conflict-related sexual violence, crimes involving children, economic crimes and starvation as a method of warfare. She was also one of 18 investigators selected globally for a U.S. Department of State inquiry into mass atrocities in Myanmar. Her career includes leadership roles with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UNESCO, UNDP and the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

A Ward 6 resident, Ms. Narayan earned her Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and her Juris Doctor from Boston University.

This webpage was last updated on August 17, 2026.