Maria Butler is director of the PeaceWomen project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), where she manages the project's monitoring, advocacy and outreach work at the United Nations in New York. She was the lead author of the "Women, Peace and Security Handbook," a 10-year analysis of the Security Council's resolutions, published in 2010. Butler is a lawyer and a member of the New York State Bar and holds an undergraduate degree in business and law from University College Dublin and a master's in human rights from the London School of Economics.