Anna Spain Bradley is an author, award-winning legal scholar, higher education leader and globally recognized human rights expert. She has spent two decades studying the role law plays in promoting peace, dignity and human rights around the world.  Based in Los Angeles, CA, Professor Spain Bradley has lived or worked in every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

Anna Spain Bradley is a legal scholar, human rights advocate and  the author of Global Racism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming),  Human Choice in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021), International Dispute Resolution (Carolina Academic Press 2021, co-editor), and many research publications.  She pioneered the argument that racism should be explicitly recognized as a human rights violation under international law in her 2019 article Human Rights Racism (Harvard Human Rights Journal). Her earlier research has investigated the role law plays in promoting peaceful resolution of disputes, decision making at the United Nations and judicial choice at the International Court of Justice. She is the recipient of the 2018 Gamm Justice Award and the 2014 American Society of International Law’s Francis Lieber Award for her article The U.N. Security Council’s Duty to Decide (Harvard National Security Journal, 2013).

A Professor of Law at the University of California Los Angeles, she has over 9 years of leadership experience in higher education, with 3 years in the C-Suite. She currently serves as the Faculty Director of The Promise Institute for Human Rights and was previously UCLA's Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer where she established UCLA's Civil Rights Office and led the DEI values-based mission for the university and hospital community of over 100,000 people. Professor Spain Bradley previously served as the inaugural Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and Development at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Professor Spain Bradley has a distinguished record of service as an international legal advocate, U.S. diplomat and civil servant. In 2024, President Biden appointed Spain Bradley to the World Bank-ICSID Panel of Conciliators for a six-year term. In 2021, the United Nations appointed her as Legal Expert to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards on the prevention of racist and xenophobic discrimination. She has been a U.S. delegate to the United Nations Compensation Commission and has represented nations as legal counsel before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. She began her legal career as an Attorney-Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she earned two Meritorious Honor Awards. Spain Bradley previously worked on climate change policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and international trade agreements at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former Vice President and Executive Council member of the American Society of International Law, former  Vice Chair and member of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, a founding member of Mediators Beyond Borders International and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. magna cum laude from Denison University. 

Drawing on over 20 years of experience in the public sector and in higher education, with time spent in senior leadership and in the C-Suite, Spain Bradley blends research-driven insights with real world experience to provide innovative keynote engagements for diverse audiences including  leadership teams, boards, universities, and the collective community experience. Her speaking style is authentic, inspiring and dynamic.