Marti Flacks

Marti Flacks is the Khosravi Chair in Principled Internationalism and Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The initiative seeks to bring innovative thinking and a multidisciplinary approach to tackle pressing global human rights challenges and better integrate human rights across foreign policy priorities. Flacks spent more than a decade in the U.S. government, most recently serving at the National Security Council (NSC) as Director of African Affairs from 2015 to 2017, where she coordinated U.S. policy across East and Southern Africa and on continent-wide trade and economic issues. Prior to the NSC, Flacks spent three years as Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Programs at the U.S. State Department, leading the department’s work on energy transparency and good governance, and four years working for the U.S. special envoy for Sudan on implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the independence of South Sudan. She joined the U.S. government through the Presidential Management Fellows program at the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining CSIS, Flacks served as Deputy Director & head of the North America office at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a human rights organization focused on the role of business in respecting human rights. Flacks received a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University, a Master's degree from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is originally from Solon, Ohio.