The IACHR Elects Board of Directors for 2021

March 26, 2021

Washington, DC—The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) elected its new Board of Directors during the opening of its 179th Period of Sessions on March 15, 2021. The board is now made up of Antonia Urrejola Noguera as President, Julissa Mantilla Falcón as First Vice-President, and Flávia Piovesan as Second Vice-President. The IACHR noted that this is the first time that its Board of Directors is composed of three women.

The IACHR is made up of seven people: Commissioners Margarette May Macaulay, Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, Joel Hernández García, Stuardo Ralón, and the three Commissioners mentioned above. The Acting Executive Secretary is María Claudia Pulido and the Deputy Executive Secretary for Petitions and Cases is Marisol Blanchard. The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression is Pedro Vaca, and the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Economic Rights (OSRESCER) is Soledad García Muñoz.

For its part, the IACHR wishes to thank Commissioner Joel Hernández for his work as President in 2020.

The new president of the IACHR, Commissioner Antonia Urrejola Noguera was elected to the organization by the OAS General Assembly in June 2017 for a four-year term from January 2018 to December 2021. She is a lawyer with a postgraduate degree in Human Rights and Transitional Justice from the University of Chile. She was a human rights advisor to the Office of the President of Chile and was particularly involved in drafting and passing bills related to human rights institutions, children, and sexual diversity. Following the return to democratic rule in Chile, she worked at the newly created Special Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and later at the Ministry of National Assets and the Ministry of Planning and Cooperation, specializing in the rights of indigenous peoples. She was an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, working with the Human Rights Program and on the issues of memory, truth, and justice, participating in the drafting and processing of various bills on national human rights institutions, political imprisonment, and torture, among others. She has also been a consultant for international organizations such as UNDP, ILO, FLACSO, the JSCA, and the IDB on issues relating to ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, and the Inter-American Human Rights System, among other issues. She was a senior advisor to the former Secretary General of the OAS between 2006 and 2011. She has been a guest lecturer on issues relating to the IASHR at various institutions and universities. She is a citizen of Chile.

The current Vice-President of the IACHR, Commissioner Julissa Mantilla Falcón, was elected to the organization by the OAS General Assembly at the 49th Ordinary Period of Sessions in June 2019 for a four-year term from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2023. She is a human rights lawyer with a degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), a Diploma in Gender from the PUCP, and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the University of London. She worked at the Peruvian Ombud's Office and led the Gender Area of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She was International Advisor on Transitional Justice for UN Women. She teaches at the Department of Law and the Master's in Human Rights at the PUCP as well as in the Academy of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law at the American University and is an international lecturer and author of several publications. She is a citizen of Peru.

Finally, the Second Vice-President of the IACHR, Commissioner Flávia Piovesan, was elected to the organization by the OAS General Assembly for a four-year term from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021. She has been a professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the Catholic University of São Paulo since 1991, a professor of the PhD program at the University of Buenos Aires, and a professor at the Human Rights Academy of the American University Washington College of Law, in the United States. She did postdoctoral studies at Harvard Law School, Oxford University, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, where she researched regional systems for human rights protection. She has worked as a professor of human rights for postgraduate programs at the Catholic University of Paraná and Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain. She was Special Secretary for Human Rights in Brazil and President of the National Commission for the Eradication of Forced Labor. She is a citizen of Brazil.

As established in the IACHR Rules of Procedure, the Board of Directors is elected every year on the first day of the first Period of Sessions of the year.

The IACHR is a principal and autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose mandate derives from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote the observance and defense of human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The IACHR is composed of seven independent members who are elected by the OAS General Assembly in their personal capacity, and do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

No. 073/21