Ruben Carranza is from the Philippines. He obtained his BA and LLB degrees from the University of the Philippines and an LLM from New York University (NYU) in 2005 as a Global Public Service Law Program scholar. For three years, he was a Commissioner in the Philippine commission that successfully recovered a significant part of Marcos assets hidden in European and other foreign banks. He was also directly involved in human rights-related litigation in the US against the Marcos family based on the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). He worked extensively with civil society on a proposed reparations program for victims of the Marcos dictatorship. He concurrently served in the UN Ad Hoc Committee that drafted the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption. As a defense official, he acquired expertise on security, human rights and conflict issues in Asia, including those affecting Southeast Asia, China, Japan as well as those conflicts affecting significant Muslim populations in the region. He has done significant research on the relationship among transitional justice, corruption and economic crimes.