Dr Claudia Mahler leads the Older Persons’ Rights team in the National/Europe Human Rights Policy Department at the German Institute for Human Rights. In 2020, she was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as the UN Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, a mandate she held until 2026. She has extensive experience in international relations and global and national aspects of demographic shifts.

Her work focuses on the human rights of older persons, as well as economic, social and cultural rights, access to justice and human rights-based approaches to poverty reduction. A lawyer by training, she specialised in international and European law at the University of Innsbruck, where she completed her doctorate in 2000. Before joining the Institute, she worked in academia and human rights research, including at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Potsdam, and has taught at several universities and served as a consultant to the United Nations.