International Lawyer Humanitarian Advocate
Jacqueline Isaac
Defending religious freedom, persecuted minorities, and victims of sexual violence in war: from the frontlines to Congress, the United Nations, governments, and global platforms around the world.
U.S. Congress United Nations UK Parliament European Union
Meet Jacqueline Isaac
Jacqueline Isaac is an international lawyer, humanitarian, and former United States Homeland Security advisor, who defends persecuted minorities and victimized girls subjected to sexual violence in war. Isaac has been featured on BBC, C-SPAN, NBC, FOX, ABC, The Guardian, Huffington Post, TEDx, Catholic EWTN, LOGOS Coptic TV, Arabic television such as Al-Arabiya, and other international media outlets.
She has testified before the U.S. Congress, United Nations, and the UK Parliament, as to her experiences on war frontlines, pushing through unanimous resolutions that declared ISIL committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, and bringing justice to survivors.
Isaac also served as an adjunct professor of war crimes at Pepperdine School of Law and speaks in front of thousands of youth, women, and audiences across the globe, calling them to action.
Isaac is also vice president of Roads of Success (ROS), a humanitarian NGO which provides aid, medical assistance, education, and advocacy for women and persecuted minorities. She is a member of the steering board of the UK Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative alongside HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh, and previously partnered with His Royal Highness Prince Mired Raad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan to undertake relief campaigns sending aid and spreading awareness of the current situation of refugees.
After earning her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law and studying at Oxford University, Jacqueline spent time at WilmerHale's International Arbitration Law Firm in London before returning to California to establish her own practice.
As seen across global media
In her own words
Official Statements & Media Coverage
As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I have worked with Ms. Isaac the past few years on various human rights and religious freedom issues in the Middle East. Her trips to Iraq providing legal advocacy, support and empowerment to the victims of ISIS provided strong testimony resounding in the minds and hearts of many.
Thank you so much for your continued support for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. In particular, your excellent work on the Declaration of Humanity… Your work, Jacqueline, was incredible in ensuring the legal elements were fully incorporated.
They have been rescued from Islamic State clutches, after suffering horrific abuse. Now American lawyer Jacqueline Isaac has launched a campaign to get asylum for 100 Yazidi girls who were kidnapped by IS extremists in Syria. She has been pushing the U.S. Congress for support and is now in Britain where peers in the House of Lords are campaigning to have the persecution of Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria declared a genocide.
At times, Isaac, vice president of a nonprofit organization called Roads of Success, and a small group of American volunteers from the religious and clinical-psychology communities who went to Irbil, Mosul, and Iraqi Kurdistan found themselves less than an hour's drive from areas controlled by so-called Islamic State militants. In fact, Isaac insisted on being taken to the bloodstained slopes of Mount Sinjar where the Yazidi population had been trapped and was almost wiped out by ISIS.
Ms. Isaac's presentation was the most polished and professional of any presentation I have seen in thirty years of teaching law. When she finished, the class sat in silence. They, as well as I, were mesmerized by the substance, style, and overall power of her presentation. That had never happened in all my years of teaching. Ms. Isaac is a special person. She combines tremendous energy, intellectual skills, humanity, and courage in her pursuit of justice. She is not afraid to tackle difficult issues… She has set the bar high at our law school. Students continue to see her as a role model, measuring their own efforts in reference to the legacy she has left at the law school.