Christine Bell was born and brought up in Belfast. She is currently Director of the Transitional Justice Institute, and Professor of Public International Law at University of Ulster (based at Magee Campus). She read law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, (1988) and gained an L.L.M. from Law at Harvard Law School (1990), supported by a Harkness Fellowship. She subsequently qualified as an Attorney-at-law in New York, practicing for a period at Debevoise & Plimpton, NY. From 1997-9 she was Director of the Centre for International and Comparative Human Rights Law, Queen's University of Belfast. She has been active in non-governmental organisations, and was chairperson of Belfast-based Human Rights organisation, the Committee on the Administration of Justice from 1995-7, and a founder member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission established under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. She has authored the book Peace Agreements and Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2000).