Javier El-Hage holds Masters degrees in International Business Law from Columbia University School of Law, and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He was a professor of public law for two years at the Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz-Bolivia, in which period he was invited by the Bolivian Constituent Assembly to provide expert testimony on international investment law and international human rights law. El-Hage also held visiting faculty positions at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar and Universidad de Aquino. Among his publications on international law, El-Hage authored the 2007 book "International Law Limitations for the Constituent Assembly: Democracy, Human Rights, Foreign Investment and Drug Control."

In 2007, in recognition of his remarkable performance in academia, he was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship for Faculty Development, by which, in 2009, he obtained his law masters degree at Columbia University. El-Hage currently serves as International Legal Director of the New York based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and heads the HRF Center for Law and Democracy, where he researches and writes on comparative constitutional law and international law. In 2010, El-Hage authored HRF's influential report entitled, "The Facts and the Law behind the Democratic Crisis of Honduras 2009-2010," which was extensively quoted by the Honduran Truth Commission’s 2011 report. Most recently, El-Hage’s research and publications have focused on the Inter-American standards of protection for freedom of association, freedom of expression and political rights, as well as the intersection between international human rights law and internet censorship.