Peri Lynne Johnson

Peri Lynne Johnson, IAEA Assistant Director General and Legal Advisor, has over 30 years’ experience in the United Nations System, nearly half of which is at the IAEA.  In 2011, she became the first female Legal Advisor and Director of the IAEA Office of Legal Affairs and is the longest serving Legal Advisor in the history of the IAEA. She was promoted to Assistant Director General in November 2024.

Prior to joining the IAEA, she served from 2000-2010 in the Legal Office of the United Nations Development Programme in New York, including in her last role as Director. Ms Johnson has also held appointments from 1995-2000 as legal officer and associate legal officer in the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York and from 1993-1995 as associate protection officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Conakry, Guinea.

Before joining the United Nations, Ms Johnson served from 1991-1993 as Legal Associate in the litigation and international practice areas at Arnold & Porter, a leading law firm, in Washington, D.C.

Ms Johnson regularly lectures and publishes on the work of the IAEA. In 2023, her lecture on the “Role of Nuclear Law in the Use of Atomic Energy for Peace and Development” was added to the permanent collection of the United Nations Audiovisual Library. Ms Johnson is featured in Chapter 7 (International Law) of Lawyers at Work (Cosslett, Apress,  2012), as well as in Chapter 11 (the Legal Adviser of the IAEA) of Legal Advisers in International Organizations (Edited by Jan Wouters, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023).

Since 2011, Ms Johnson has been a member of the Supervisory Board of the OECD/Nuclear Energy Agency’s International School of Nuclear Law, in Montpellier, France. Ms Johnson was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School, for distinguished public service in international organizations during the 2023-2024 academic year.

Ms Johnson earned her B.A. in French Literature, with distinction in all subjects, from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1988, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1991.