By Chris Caesar
law of technology
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winter 2026
rule of law
When a crisis hits, Diler Erdengiz, JD ’13, and her colleagues at the UN work quickly to give Secretary-General António Guterres the most accurate, comprehensive information possible. Their mission: clarity under pressure.
For Erdengiz, team lead in the United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary-General, that mission is personal. “When I look at what the blue flag has represented for people without a voice—and the sacrifices my colleagues make—that keeps me going,” she says.
She often recalls a line from Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN’s second Secretary-General: “The UN was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” Those aren’t just words to her and her colleagues, she says, recounting the story of a friend—a UN staffer deployed to a peacekeeping mission at a volatile time. To keep her family safe, the staffer moved her children to a neighboring country—then crossed back into her area of operations each day to see them, which would often take her hours. “Only in this organization do you meet people like this,” Erdengiz says.
Her path to the UN began in her home country, Cyprus, a nation with its own peacekeeping mission. “Growing up, I saw the blue flag as the future—eventually as my future,” she recalls. A scholarship to Suffolk Law enabled her path to the UN. Suffolk Law Professor Emeritus Valerie Epps’s international law courses gave her the foundation she needed to pass the UN’s competitive entrance exam, the Young Professionals Programme. “I simply wouldn’t be where I am without Suffolk Law,” she says.
After working at a Boston firm, Erdengiz joined the UN’s 24/7 Operations and Crisis Centre, then spent a year at the UN Mission in Kosovo before returning to New York and assuming her current position—making sure the Secretary-General and his cabinet have the comprehensive set of facts and the appropriate individuals around the table to act fast and make decisions on issues of strategic significance.
That means weaving together various perspectives, “pillars” in UN parlance, from peace and security, human rights, and humanitarian affairs, to economic development. “If you only hear one side of the story, the decisions may not be optimal,” she explains. Her team makes sure that what high-level decision-makers see is the full picture of what is unfolding on the ground.
“My legal education taught me to cut through the noise and think systematically,” she says. For law students eyeing similar careers, her advice is not to be afraid of roles that don’t look like traditional legal practice.
“This is a competitive space—keep an open mind,” she says.
The work is intense and unpredictable, she adds. While certainly appreciated by high-level decision-makers, no one hands out prizes for the long hours. But those colleagues—the ones crossing borders, the ones who remain despite unimaginable loss and risk—are why she stays. “Even in the hardest moments,” Erdengiz says, “all they want to do is help.”
By Michael Fisch and Robert Schlesinger
Photography: Adobe
Diler Erdengiz, JD '13
Photography courtesy of Diler Erdengiz
When a crisis hits, Diler Erdengiz, JD ’13, and her colleagues at the UN work quickly to give Secretary-General António Guterres the most accurate, comprehensive information possible. Their mission: clarity under pressure.
For Erdengiz, team lead in the United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary-General, that mission is personal. “When I look at what the blue flag has represented for people without a voice—and the sacrifices my colleagues make—that keeps me going,” she says.