San José, Costa Rica.- Today the General Assembly of the Organization of American States elected jurists Diego García Sayán of Peru; Clare Kamau Roberts of Antigua and Barbuda; and José Zalaquet Daher of Chile to four-year terms on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). García Sayán received 22 votes, Kamau Roberts, 21 and Zalaquet Daher, 19.

On the final day of the Assembly’s regular session, the foreign ministers of the Americas, meeting in the Costa Rican capital, also elected Ana Villalta of El Salvador as a new member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee, together with jurists Luis Herrera Marcano of Venezuela and Kenneth Rattray of Jamaica, who were re-elected for four years. Herrera Marcano received 27 votes, while Villalta and Rattray each received 25.

Jurists Federico Gallizo Nicora of Paraguay and Mónica Nagel Berger of Costa Rica were elected as new members of the Justice Studies Center of the Americas, with no ballots cast, since they were the only candidates for the two vacancies. The same procedure was used to elect Graciela Fernández Baca of Peru to the Board of External Auditors of the OAS.

The Inter-American Juridical Committee (CJI) is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro and is currently chaired by Brazilian jurist Joao Grandino Rodas. Chilean jurist Claudio Grossman is the president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Executive Director of the Justice Studies Center of the Americas is Chilean jurist Juan Enrique Vargas. The current seat of the Center is Santiago, Chile.

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