Sarah Creedon

Sarah Creedon is a human rights and multilateral diplomacy practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of international law, conflict accountability, and emerging technology. Over more than two decades of government service, international diplomacy, and academic research, she has translated complex human rights challenges into practical policy frameworks — most recently focused on the human rights implications of digital platforms and AI development.

 

Sarah is currently a Research Associate at the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights (GCBHR) at the University of Geneva, where she works with corporations and civil society to strengthen human rights due diligence practices and develop communication pathways between global businesses and human rights defenders. Her research engages directly with digital policy, cybersecurity norms, and the governance of emerging technologies — including multilateral efforts addressing internet freedom, digital repression, commercial spyware, and the protection of civic space online.

 

Previously, Sarah served as a Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), where she led the Washington-based multilateral team and served on the U.S. delegation to the UN Human Rights Council more than a dozen times. As the State Department's longest-serving practitioner on the Syria human rights portfolio, she worked directly with survivors, women's rights organizations, and civil society groups to forge accountability mechanisms, support missing persons documentation, and advance trauma-informed and survivor-centered approaches to justice and conflict resolution.

 

Sarah also served as Director for Multilateral Affairs and Accountability at the White House National Security Council, coordinating U.S. engagement on the UN and other international human rights and accountability initiatives. Prior to her work in the executive branch she served as Legislative Assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy. She holds a Master's degree from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a Bachelor's degree in Government from Smith College.

 

Fellowship Project: As digital platforms increasingly redefine 21st-century diplomacy and international security, the exclusion of women from AI design represents a structural deficit with direct consequences for global stability. This project explores how to translate the international legal imperatives of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (WPS), the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), and the ICCPR into actionable AI development standards. By formalizing gender-responsive human rights due diligence, it establishes clear benchmarks for corporate responsibility and the protection of digital civic freedoms. Drawing on two decades of diplomatic practice alongside women human rights defenders in active conflict zones, the project develops pragmatic, survivor-centered frameworks to embed peacebuilder expertise directly into AI product design—translating field knowledge into industry practice.