Sarah Roache is a consultant in the World Health Organization’s Alcohol, Drugs and Addictive Behaviors team. She provides operational and technical assistance to the Global SAFER Alcohol Control Initiative, which supports countries to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and a scholar at the O’Neill Institute. Roache is an experienced global health lawyer and policy advisor with expertise in human rights law, litigation, and regulatory and policy approaches to improving global public health. She focuses on legal and policy approaches to reducing tobacco and alcohol use and promoting healthy diets and physical activity.
Prior to joining the World Health Organization, Roache served as the director of the Health Law and Capacity Building Initiatives at the O’Neill Institute, leading the academic and capacity building programs for lawyers and government officials working at the intersection of health and law. She also has experience as a complex class action litigator, representing victims of tobacco related diseases and thalidomide survivors, and as a social and legal policy adviser to governments and NGOs.
Roache has a Master of Laws in Global Health Law from Georgetown University, where she received the Thomas Bradbury Chetwood, S.J. Prize for the most distinguished academic record. She also has a Bachelor of Laws (with honors) and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is admitted to the New York Bar and to the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.