According to the American Convention on Human Rights, the Commission shall be composed of seven members, who shall be persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights, elected in a personal capacity by the OAS General Assembly from a list of candidates proposed by the governments of the Member States. Each of those governments may propose up to three candidates, who may be nationals of the State proposing them or of any other OAS Member State. When a slate of three is proposed, at least one of the candidates shall be a national of a State other than the one proposing the slate. The members of the Commission are elected for a four-year term and may be reelected only once.

José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez

Commissioner José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez is a citizen of Mexico. He was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. On June 6, 2013, the General Assembly reelected him for a second term, which will begin on January 1, 2014 and end on December 31, 2017. He is a researcher in constitutional law, human rights, the judiciary, and comparative law, among other areas, at the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Previously, he served for 16 years as a Magistrate on Mexico's highest electoral courts, first in the Central Chamber of the Federal Electoral Court and then in the Higher Chamber of the Electoral Court of the Judiciary. He earned a Doctor of Law degree with honors from UNAM, and a Master of Comparative Law from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author or co-author of 8 books and the coordinator or editor of another 15, and he has written more than 100 articles for academic publications.
 

Tracy Robinson

Tracy Robinson is a citizen of Jamaica. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She is a lawyer and teaches Gender and the Law, Constitutional Law and Commonwealth Caribbean Human Rights, among other law subjects, at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. She has been a consultant for international agencies such as the United Nations Fund for Women and UNICEF, and she has advised Caribbean governments on topics related to legislation on gender and children rights, among others. Commissioner Robinson has been editor of the Caribbean Law Bulletin and she has written and published reports on a range of topics, including gender, the rights of LGTBI persons, sexual harassment, sexual rights, sex work and the law, and the rights of the child. She has a Bachelor of Law from University of the West Indies and an LLM from the University of Yale, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Civil Law from Oxford University.
 

Felipe González

Felipe González is a citizen of Chile. He was elected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008. He was reelected in 2011 for a second term, which started January 1, 2012. He was the IACHR Chair in 2010. Commissioner González is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Constitutional Law at Chile’s Diego Portales University. He founded and directed that university’s Human Rights Center, where from 2002 to 2006 he managed the preparation and publication of an Annual Report on Human Rights in Chile. He also founded and coordinated a Latin American Network of Legal Human Rights Clinics. He is S.J.D. from the Carlos III University of Madrid, and he holds a Master of Law degree from American University and a Master of Advanced Human Rights Studies from Carlos III University. He is a Professor at the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University and a Visiting Professor at Carlos III University. Previously he has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Lund University, the University of Deusto, and the University of Alcalá de Henares. He also worked for the International Human Rights Law Group (now Global Rights), first in Washington, D.C., and then in Santiago, Chile.
 

Dinah Shelton

Dinah Shelton is a citizen of the United States. She was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. Commissioner Shelton is the Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School. Previously, she was Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School. She has also been a Visiting Professor at various universities in the United States and France. Commissioner Shelton also directed the Office of Staff Attorneys at the United States Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit and was Director of Studies at the International Institute of Human Rights. She studied law at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been an international law consultant for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN Institute for Training and Research, among others. She has written, co-written, or edited 19 books and authored dozens of book chapters and articles on human rights and international law.
 

Rodrigo Escobar Gil

Commissioner Rodrigo Escobar Gil is a citizen of Colombia. He was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. He was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia in the 2001-2009 period and was its President from February 2007 to February 2008. He was General Director of the Rotating Fund of the Ministry of Justice, as well as a consultant attorney and legal representative for various private companies and public entities for 16 years. He has also been Professor of Public Law at the Pontifical Javeriana University and Sergio Arboleda University, among other universities in Colombia. He serves on the Sergio Arboleda University School of Law's Human Rights Committee and the organizing committee for the university's Institute of Human Rights. He studied law at Javeriana University in Bogotá and earned his doctorate at Complutense University in Madrid. He has written three books and dozens of academic articles, and has given seminars and conferences on human rights and other topics.
 

Rosa María Ortiz

Rosa María Ortiz is a citizen of Paraguay. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She graduated in social communications media and is an expert in children’s human rights. She has been Vice-President of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and adviser on human rights and cultural diversity for the Paraguayan Presidency’s National Secretariat of Culture. She is founder and member of several human rights organizations, including Decidamos, Global, Tekoha, Callescuela and Workshop on Communication and Popular Education. In 2003 she was recognized with the award Paraguayan Women of the Paraguayan Presidency’s Women’s Secretariat, and in 2010 she received the award Peter Benenson for the Defense of Human Rights from the Paraguay Section of Amnesty International. During Alfredo Stroessner’s dicatorship, she worked through ecumenical organizations in favor of the political prisioners of her country. Commissioner Ortiz has offered numerous conferences, workshops and has written articles on the rights of children.
 

Rose-Marie Belle Antoine

Rose-Marie Belle Antoine has dual citizenship of Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She is a lawyer and holds the Chair as Professor of Law at the University of the West Indies specializing in human rights, financial law, comparative law, administrative law, public service law, discrimination law and labour law. She has also also lectured abroad, including in the United States. Commissioner Antoine has substantial international consultancy experience. She has served as senior legal advisor to virtually all of the governments of the Commonwealth Carribbean and to governments outside of the region, such as the UK, Venezuela, USA and Canada, and to several international and regional organizations. These include the European Union, UNICEF, UNIFEM, the ILO, the IADB, the World Bank, and the OAS, among others. She is an award-winning author who has written eight books and numerous reports and articles and drafted laws on a wide range of topics, including discrimination, constitutional reform, public service reform, juvenile justice, mutual legal assistance, women’s rights, health, sexual harassment, trafficking in persons, labour law, free movement of labour, HIV, financial law, anti-drug trafficking and anti-corruption. Commissioner Antoine is both an Oxford Commonwealth Scholar and a Cambridge Pegasus Scholar, holding a doctorate from Oxford University, an LL.M. from Cambridge and an LL.B. from the University of the West Indies. Professor Antoine also holds diplomas and certificates in international human rights from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
 

Chair: Jose de Jesus Orozco Henriquez
First Vice-Chair: Tracy Robinson
Second Vice-Chair: Rosa María Ortiz

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Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro
Brazil
2004-2011

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro was elected in the OAS General Assembly held in June 2003 and began serving on the IACHR on January 1, 2004. He was reelected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008.  Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro is Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. He was United Nations Special Rapporteur for Myanmar and for Burundi, and was appointed by the UN Secretary-General as an independent expert to prepare the Study on Violence against Children, presented in 2006. He also served as Vice-Chair of the Humanitarian International Verification Commission in Bern, Switzerland, and participated in human rights observation missions in Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Peru, Paraguay, Togo, and East Timor, among other countries. He has taught at a number of universities, including the University of São Paulo in Brazil; Oxford in Great Britain; Notre Dame and Columbia in the United States; and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He has published hundreds of essays, articles, and books on human rights.

Luz Patricia Mejía
Venezuela
2008-2011

Luz Patricia Mejía was elected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008. She was First Vice-Chair of the IACHR in 2008 and Chair in 2009. Luz Patricia Mejía is an attorney who graduated from the School of Juridical and Political Science at the Central University of Venezuela, where she studied Administrative Law. She was Director of Legal Counsel in Venezuela’s Public Ministry and previously worked in that country’s Public Defender’s Office, as Director of Legal Resources and later Director General of Legal Services. She was also in charge of carrying out the Defense Program as part of Venezuela’s Education-Action in Human Rights Program (PROVEA), and worked as an attorney with the Women’s Association for Reciprocal Assistance (AMBAR) and the Organization for Citizen Action against AIDS (ACCSI). She co-authored the Law for the Protection of Victims, Witnesses, and Others Involved in Judicial Procedures, as well as the Organic Law of the Public Defender’s Office and the Organic Law of Citizen Power. She has published research and specialized articles, and has lectured in courses and seminars.

María Silvia Guillén
El Salvador
2010-2011

María Silvia Guillén was elected at the December 3, 2009, regular session of the Permanent Council, in accordance with Article 9 of the IACHR Rules of Procedure, to fill out the term of Commissioner Florentín Meléndez, who resigned effective December 31, 2009. María Silvia Guillén is Executive Director of the Foundation for Studies on the Application of the Law in El Salvador (FESPAD) and a Deputy Judge of the Central American Court of Justice. She is also a member of the El Salvador Working Commission on Human Rights and Historical Memory, as well as the Salvadoran Coalition for the International Criminal Court. She has been a member of the El Salvador Supreme Court of Justice's Commission of Inquiry into Irregular Diplomas, the Court of Appeals for the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, and the Special Commission for a comprehensive assessment of the Attorney General's Office. She has been a Professor of Law at the university level and teaches in FESPAD's Legal Update and Training Project. She has been a consultant and researcher for various organizations, including the United Nations, the Arias Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and FIAN International. She graduated with a law degree from the University of El Salvador.