The Diplomatic Advocate: Promoting Human Rights in the Post-Soviet Region

Jacqueline Carpenter has had a lifelong fascination with the Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union. She first visited Russia in 1995 as an English teacher and returned a decade later as a volunteer in orphanages in Yaroslavl.  After completing her Master of International Affairs degree at Columbia University in 2008, Ms. Carpenter began working with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in its field presence in Baku, Azerbaijan and then Chisinau, Moldova.  In both countries she advised the mission on sensitive human rights and democratization issues, and managed diverse development projects. In 2014 she also was deployed to Ukraine twice as an observer. Her fieldwork experience has provided her with a unique perspective on the forces at play in these countries, the contradictions inherent in development work, and the changing dynamics between Europe and Russia.