Naomi Roht-Arriaza co-chair’s the Victims of Corruption Working Group and is an academic specializing in human rights, environmental and tort law. She teaches at the University of California, Hastings Law and has worked with civil society groups, mostly in Latin America, on anti-impunity and accountability for over 30 years. Naomi came to anti-corruption work out of a sense that the protection of human rights and the environment is increasingly being undermined and impeded by the control of state institutions (and business elites) by kleptocrats who subvert controls, create impunity for themselves, and reconfigure the state to support private gain rather than the public good.
Naomi has written on access to justice for victims of grand corruption, reparations for corruption, environmental protection and corruption at moments of transition, and similar subjects. She also worked with a number of organizations on making more effective the interface between anti-corruption and human rights work. Over the years, Naomi has been a board member of several organizations dedicated to human rights and the environment.