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Jean Michel Arrighi

Secretary for Legal Affairs

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, March 4, 1953. Attorney and Doctor of Laws and Social Sciences (Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay). Professor of Public International Law at the Universidad de la República and the Universidad Católica (Uruguay). Has lectured, among others, at the Universidad Federal de Rio Grande do Sul (Brasil), Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina), the OAS Course on International Law and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales of the University of Paris II (France) and at The Hague Academy of International Law.

He is associated to the “Institut de Droit International”, member of the “Instituto Hispano-Luso Americano de Derecho Internacional”, of the “Société Francaise de Droit International”, of the “American Society of International Law” and of the “Academia Nacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales de Argentina”. He was a founding member of the “Instituto Ibero-Latinoamericano de Derecho del Consumidor” and member of the editorial board of the “Journal of Consumer Policy”.

Author of books and articles on international law, consumer law and Inter-American law, published in journals in the Americas and Europe. Collaborated in the treaty on Public International Law under the direction of Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga. Published an article on the reforms to the OAS Charter in the “Annuaire Francais de Droit International”, a book on the OAS published in Brazil (ed. Manole, Sao Paulo, 2003) and the articles on the inter-american system of the “Encyclopedia of Public International Law” (Max Planck Institute and Oxford University Press).

Former National Director of Commerce and Suppliers in Uruguay (1985 - 1990). Legal adviser to to the General Secretariat of the OAS (1993 - 1996). From 1996 to 2005, he was the Director of the Department of International Law of the General Secretariat of the OAS. Since 2005,  he was then Director of the Department of International Legal Affairs until his appointement as Secretary for Legal Affairs in 2008.