Thomas Regalado serves as Senior Legal Counsel at International Rights Legal, where he leads all litigation strategy, legal submissions, and advocacy before international courts, tribunals, and quasi-judicial bodies. He is the organization's principal legal architect, responsible for translating complex investigative findings into legally actionable submissions that meet the exacting evidentiary and procedural standards of international criminal and human rights adjudication.
Background
Mr. Regalado joined International Rights Legal in 2012 following a distinguished career in international legal practice. He previously served as a Trial Attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, where he was a member of the prosecution team in proceedings related to the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Prior to The Hague, he practiced as a litigator at a leading international law firm in New York, specializing in complex civil litigation and international arbitration, before transitioning to public international law.
He received his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and philosophy from Georgetown University. He completed postdoctoral studies in international criminal law at the Hague Academy of International Law.
Expertise & Key Legal Actions
Mr. Regalado has authored or directed the preparation of more than 40 formal legal submissions to international courts and tribunals, including amicus curiae briefs to the International Criminal Court, victim participation submissions, and communications to the ICC Office of the Prosecutor under Article 15 of the Rome Statute. He has also filed formal complaints with the UN Human Rights Committee, the Committee against Torture, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights.
His legal strategy for the organization's submission to the International Court of Justice in the Rohingya genocide proceedings was cited by legal scholars as a model for third-party evidentiary contributions to inter-state cases. He also designed the legal framework for the organization's corporate complicity investigations, establishing the analytical methodology for tracing supply-chain complicity under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and applicable domestic criminal liability statutes.
Mr. Regalado has led the organization's engagement with national courts exercising universal jurisdiction, successfully filing criminal complaints in France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland relating to atrocities committed in Syria, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Several of these filings have directly resulted in the opening of formal criminal investigations by national prosecutors.
Recognition & Publications
Mr. Regalado was named to the Global Investigation Review's "40 Under 40" list of the most prominent investigation lawyers worldwide (2021) and received the International Justice Prize from the American Society of International Law in 2023. He has published in the American Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, and the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and is a regular panelist at the Nuremberg Forum and the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute.
Education
- J.D., Columbia Law School
- Postdoctoral Certificate, International Criminal Law, Hague Academy of International Law
- B.A., Political Science and Philosophy, Georgetown University