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IACHR
Press Release
IACHR Elects New Board
March 8, 2013
Washington, D.C. – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) elected today its new board. The board of officers is composed of José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez (Mexico), Chair; Tracy Robinson (Jamaica), First Vice-Chair; and Rosa María Ortiz (Paraguay), Second Vice-Chair. The election was held, in accordance with the IACHR rules of procedure, at the beginning of the Commission’s 147th regular period of sessions. The other members of the IACHR are Felipe González (Chile), Dinah Shelton (United States), Rodrigo Escobar Gil (Colombia), and Rose-Marie Belle Antoine (St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago). The Executive Secretary is Emilio Alvarez Icaza (Mexico).
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. 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.
Commissioner 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 Yale Law School, as well as a Bachelor’s of Civil Law from Oxford University.
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.
A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
No. 17/13