Jess Peake is the Director of International and Comparative Law Program at UCLA School of Law and the Director of UCLA Law’s Digital Investigations Lab, which she launched in 2021. She currently teaches Human Rights and War Crimes Digital Investigations and has previously taught courses on the Law of War and the War on Terror, Methods and Theories of International and Comparative Law, and International Criminal Court Jurisdiction. Peake is an affiliated faculty member of the Public Interest Law and Policy Program and the Technology Law and Policy Program. She also oversees UCLA Law’s Visiting Scholars and Researchers Program.

In 2021, Peake received a grant from the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives to establish the UC Digital Investigations Network (UCDIN), with collaborators at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center and the UC Santa Cruz Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas. Together, the three campuses are training students from across disciplines on cutting-edge open-source investigation theory and methodology, exploring how new technologies can be used to document evidence of human rights violations and war crimes for accountability purposes. This work has also been supported by grants from the Public Interest Technology - University Network (PIT-UN).

Peake serves on the Board of Directors of the International Law Students Association and has served on various committees of the American Society of International Law (ASIL). She is part of the ASIL Women in International Law Mentoring Program and has judged at regional and international rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition since 2010. Along with two others, she is co-chairing the 2025 International Law Weekend (ILW) hosted by the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA).

Peake has published in academic journals and leading international law blogs, and her comments on current events have been featured in media, including NPR and The Intercept. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2023.

Before joining UCLA in 2014, Peake was the Executive Director of a women's rights non-profit focused on the protection and advancement of women at risk in East Africa through the provision of shelter, education, and training. She also worked in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the Hague and in the Defense Services Section at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). She has consulted on issues of international law for various states and civil society organizations and has developed training on conflict resolution and peacebuilding for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) for humanitarian practitioners in the field.

Peake earned her LL.B. in European, International and Comparative Law from the University of Sheffield, UK, and an LL.M. in Public International Law from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. She also gained an LL.M. with a concentration in Human Rights from the University of Pennsylvania as a Thouron Scholar.

You can follow her on Bluesky at @jesspeake.bsky.social