Research Interests

Professor Mertus’ work focuses on human rights, U.S. foreign policy, refugee and humanitarian law and policy, gender and conflict and post-war transitions. Her geographic expertise is in Central and Eastern Europe, with a specialty on the former Yugoslavia.

Selected Publications

• Human Rights Matters: Local Politics and National Human Rights Institutions (Stanford University Press, 2009).  
• The United Nations and Human Rights: A Guide for a New Era (Routledge, 2005, second edition 2009).
• Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2004, second edition 2007). Awarded “Best human rights book of the year” prize by the American Political Science Association, Human Rights Section.

Media Appearances

• WAMU, Radio, “Community Brainstorming Session on Gender-Based Violence,” (October 25, 2010).   
• Voice of America, videoconference dialogue between American and Kosovar youth on the subject of new/social media (September 2010).   
• Commentator on human rights and U.S. foreign policy, refugee policy, “ethnic conflict” and post-conflict reconstruction in the Balkans for several media outlets including: BBC World Service, CNN International, CBS, CNBC, Fox News, Voice of America (television and radio), International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times.   
• Open Democracy  
• The Baltimore Sun
• The Chicago Tribune
• USA Today
• The Washington Post
• The Christian Science Monitor
• The Philadelphia Inquirer
• The Atlanta Journal Constitution