Author portrait © George Baier IV.
Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is a Peruvian-American human rights activist, writer, and lawyer who has worked globally on issues of autocracy, corruption, armed conflict, and organized crime. She is the author of the narrative non-fiction book There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia (Bold Type Books, Feb. 2017), which won the 2018 Juan E. Méndez Human Rights Book Award; the book's Spanish translation, by Planeta Colombia, is on its third printing.
Maria has held multiple positions at Human Rights Watch, including most recently as senior legal advisor and acting deputy program director. She started her international human rights career as a senior Americas researcher, covering Colombia's internal armed conflict and working on the extradition and trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. As deputy Washington director, she conducted advocacy on a wide range of US foreign policy issues, including on the "Arab Spring" of 2011. As co-director of HRW's US Program, she helped guide the organization's work on US criminal legal system and national security policy.
From 2017 to 2020, Maria served as the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading US-based organization fighting to end the global war on drugs.
Maria grew up in Lima, Peru, during a time of internal war, economic crisis, and autocracy.