Mirte Postema is the Fellow for Human Rights, Criminal Justice and Prison Reform in the Americas. Prior to joining the Stanford Human Rights Center, she led the Judicial Independence Program at the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) in Washington, D.C., an NGO working on human rights and rule of law issues in Latin America.

A human rights practitioner, she initiated and supervised applied research on judicial independence, transparency and accountability, selection processes of high-level judges, judicial reform, access to justice for indigenous peoples, and transitional justice, mostly focusing on Central America and Mexico. In these efforts, she worked closely together with national and international civil society organizations and associations of judges, developing and executing advocacy strategies at national and international levels.

In that role, she frequently contributed analyses and policy recommendations on the strengthening of the judiciary to Latin American governments, as well as to international actors such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.S. Department of State. She also shared her expertise with judicial authorities, for example, authoring an amicus curiae brief on the selection of judicial authorities that was presented to the Guatemalan Constitutional Court. That same Court cited her Guidelines for a transparent and merit-based system for the appointment of high-level judges as doctrine, in case 2143-2014 of June 13, 2014.

Mirte, who is originally from the Netherlands, got her law degree – specializing in European comparative law, international law and EU law – from Maastricht University. She also earned an MSc in Social Sciences of Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a certificate in Latin American Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She speaks Dutch, English and Spanish fluently, and has a basic command of German and French.