Robin Rachel Runge

Robin R. Runge, JD is an internationally-recognized expert on legal and policy advocacy to address gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work. Her career has included the successful advancement and enforcement of local, state, national and international legal and policy solutions to end gender- and sex-based violence and harassment as barriers to economic security. Currently, Ms. Runge is a consultant and a Distinguished Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School where she has taught Domestic Violence Law since 2004, including in the clinical education program. Ms. Runge is the author of several law articles and most recently co-author of the bookStopping Gender-Based Violence in the World of Work (Aspen Publishing 2022) describing the landmark global campaign that led to the adoption of C190.

From 2017 to March 2022, she was Co-Director, Acting Director, and Senior Gender Specialist in the Equality and Inclusion Department at the Solidarity Center where Ms. Runge provided global strategic leadership to international Solidarity Center staff, unions and workers' rights organization partners, and allies internationally on gender equality and inclusion and directed the implementation of the Solidarity Center’s global campaign to end gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work. As a part of her leadership on the global campaign, Ms. Runge served as a member of the technical workers group drafting committee for negotiations at the International Labour Conference in 2018 and 2019 which led to the adoption of the first ever binding global labor standard to address violence and harassment in the world of work including gender-based violence and harassment (Convention 190).

Prior to joining the staff of the Solidarity Center, she was the Director of Enforcement Policy and Procedures in the Wage and Hour Division and a Senior Policy Advisor in the Civil Rights Center at the U.S. Department of Labor. From 2009-2013, Ms. Runge was an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota School of Law where she taught in the Housing and Employment Law Clinic and Domestic Violence Law. In 2012-2013, Ms. Runge lived in Beijing, China as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar studying the legal system response to violence against women in China and assisting with the drafting of the national anti-domestic violence law that was adopted in 2015. From 2003 to 2009, she directed the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence where Ms. Runge led efforts to expand civil legal assistance for victims of domestic violence domestically and internationally. Previously, she was Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Program on Women’s Employment Rights (POWER) at the DC Employment Justice Center. Upon graduation from law school, Ms. Runge received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship and created the Domestic Violence and Employment Project at the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco, one of the first programs in the country devoted exclusively to advocating for the employment rights of domestic violence victims. She is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School and Wellesley College. Ms. Runge is from Collinsville, Illinois and currently resides in Washington, DC.