Dr.  Claudia Escobar Mejía is a Guatemalan lawyer and a former magistrate of the Court of Appeals. She is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government in the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TRACCC) at George Mason University. She is also the Executive Director of Be Just, an organization that promotes the rule of law by strengthening the institutions of the justice sector, supporting anti-corruption initiatives, and respecting human rights.

Dr. Escobar received the “Democracy Award” in 2017 for her commitment to fighting impunity and corruption. Lately, she was honored by the Harvard Women’s Law Association and Harvard Law in the exhibition “Women inspiring change” organized at the School’s 6th Annual International Women’s Day Celebration.

Dr. Escobar was named a Centennial Fellow of Georgetown University at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (2017-2018). Her fellowship responsibilities included lecturing, mentoring, and research. Likewise, she was selected by the National Endowment for Democracy to join the Reagan-Fascell Fellows Program (2016-2017), where she promoted the importance of judicial independence as a tool to fight corruption. In 2015-16, while a fellow at Harvard University, she became the first Central American to be awarded a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

In Guatemala, Escobar served as Judge of the First Instance. Later she was designated as a magistrate in the Court of Appeals. When running for a second term, the head of the Guatemalan Congress conditioned her election upon exchange for a judgment that would favor the political party and the Vice President. For this reason, she resigned from her position and denounced interference against judicial independence on the part of the legislative and executive powers. Consequently, the congressman received a thirteen years prison sentence for bribery and influence peddling. Due to threats and intimidation, Judge Escobar relocated to the United States in 2015. She was elected as commissioner for the International Experts Commission against Corruption in Ecuador by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Government of Ecuador in 2019.

She regularly contributes time and effort to various civil society organizations in the defense of human rights and the promotion of the Rule of Law. She is affiliated with Transparency International (TI), as a member of the International Council; Integrity Initiatives International (Triple III), Board of Directors; Integrity Sanctuary Fellowship, founding member, and Board of Directors. Univeristat Autónoma Barcelona, Ethics Committee of Manuel Ballbé Cátedra.

Dr. Escobar has a bachelor's in Political Science from Louisiana State University. She obtained her law degree at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala and her Ph.D. and master’s degree in Pluralistic Law at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain. Dr. Escobar is an active member of the Anti-Corruption Advocacy Network (ACAN) in Washington DC and the Academia Against Corruption in the Americas (Mexico). She lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband and one of her six children.