Deprived of Liberty

Rapporteur

Comissionner Rodrigo Escobar Gil
Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons
Deprived of Liberty

The Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty is Commissioner Rodrigo Escobar Gil, office he took on January 28, 2010. Having studied law at Javeriana University in Bogotá and having earned his doctorate at Complutense University in Madrid, Commissioner Escobar Gil was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia in the 2001-2009 period and was its President from February 2007 to February 2008. Between 1987 and 2007, he has been Professor of Public Law in undergraduate and graduate courses in several universities in Colombia, such as the Pontifical Javeriana University, La Sabana, the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario and Sergio Arboleda University. He is also the author of several academic publications. He has also been consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in processes of institutional reform in Latin America. Currently, he is a member of the Human Rights Committee at the Law School of the Sergio Arboleda University, and of the Preparing Committee of the Human Rights Institute of the same university. (More information)

Former Rapporteurs

Florentin Meléndez

Florentin Meléndez, citizen of El Salvador, was Commissioners from January 2004 to December 2009, and during the same period he was Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Americas. As such, he prepared the Declaration of Principles on the Protection of Persons Deprived of Liberty, which was approved by the IACHR in March 2008. During his tenure as Rapporteur, he visited jails, penitentiaries, police holding cells and other detention centers in several countries in the region. Former Commissioner Meléndez has a doctorate in international human rights law and a Master’s in human rights at the Complutense University of Madrid and a Bachelor’s Degree in Law from the National University of El Salvador. He lectures and holds seminars on human rights, international law, and constitutional law and has been a guest lecturer at several universities in the Americas. In the course of his professional career, former Rapporteur Meléndez has worked at the United Nations and in public and private institutions in his country on human rights-related subjects. He is currently a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador.