Jennifer Lester

Jennifer Lester is an international lawyer with over 35 years experience in international administrative law and corporate law. She has worked at several international organizations  advising on legal, ethics and conduct matters as well as on governance and risk management. She served as Assistant General Counsel at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. and was Director of the Corporate Services and Facilities department and Chair of its Crisis Management Team during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since retiring from the IMF, she has worked as an independent legal advisor to a range of international organizations advising on staff rules and regulations and revising their internal justice systems. She also currently chairs the internal appeals body for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies adjudicating staff appeals, and she previously served as a Judge on the Administrative Tribunal of the former Center for Technical Cooperation in Agriculture in the Netherlands. She is the Chair of the UN Women Advisory Committee on Oversight since 2025 and has been a member of the Committee since 2023. She is also a member of the Oversight Advisory Committee for the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. She holds a JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center, as well as a M.Sc. in International Relations, and a B.A. in Modern Languages both from the University of the West Indies, where she was a UWI Open Scholar and a Post-Graduate Scholar. Earlier in her legal career, she practiced corporate law, international trade law and litigation at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in Washington, DC.  She is also a former senior, career Foreign Service Officer with the Jamaican Foreign Service, and served as Minister-Counsellor at the Jamaican Embassy in Washington, DC. 

Members of the Tribunal