Rapporteur

José Luis Caballero Ochoa

Commissioner José Luis Caballero Ochoa

Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders

Commissioner Caballero Ochoa was elected at the OAS Permanent Council meeting of September 5, 2023, with a term of office that runs through December 31, 2025. He holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, a master's degree in law from the Law School of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a doctorate in law from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) of Spain. He has an extensive career in academia and teaching, being director of the Law Department of the Universidad Iberoamericana from 2015 to 2021. He is a member of the National System of Researchers of the National Council of Science, Humanities and Technology of Mexico since 2009 and part of the International Commission of Jurists since 2021. He has published almost a hundred book chapters and articles in specialized journals, as well as books published in juridical publishers of high international recognition. Additionally, he has been part of technical and citizen councils for the definition of lines of action of public institutions for the respect, guarantee and promotion of human rights. He is a citizen of Mexico.

Former Rapporteurs

Joel Hernández García

Joel Hernández García

2022 - 2023

Commissioner Joel Hernández García was re-elected in the 51st Regular Period of Sessions of the OAS General Assembly, on November 12, 2021, for four years, from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2025. His first term as Commissioner was elected on June 21, 2017, by the General Assembly of the OAS, for a period of four years that began on January 1, 2018, and ends on December 31, 2021. He holds a law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma of Mexico and a master's degree in international law from the New York University School of Law. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and was a member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee during 2015-2018.

He is President of the Mexican branch of the International Law Association. In the foreign service of Mexico, he rose to the rank of ambassador and served in several positions. From 2011 to 2013, he served as Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OAS. In that capacity, he chaired the working group to strengthen the IAHRS. He has been a guest professor in the fields of international law and international organizations in various academic institutions. He is a citizen of Mexico.

Commissioner Joel Hernández García submitted his resignation from the IACHR on August 3, 2023

Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli

Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli

2016 - 2019

Commissioner Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli was elected Commissioner on June 16, 2015, by the OAS General Assembly for a four-year term that ran from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2019. He has a law degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, with a master's degree in Constitutional Law and a PhD in Humanities. He was Ambassador of Peru to the Kingdom of Spain from 2012 to 2014 and Minister of Justice. He is currently a legal consultant and adviser at both the national and international level, specializing in issues related to Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Human Rights. He is a citizen of Peru.

José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez

José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez

2010 - 2017

Commissioner José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez is a citizen of Mexico. He was elected during the 39th session of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 to a regular four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. He took the responsibility of the Unit in January 2010, and stayed as Rapporteur when the Commission decided, in March 2011, to convert the Unit into a Rapporteurship . 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 has authored or co-authored 8 books and coordinated or edited another 15, and he has written more than 100 articles for academic publications.

Paolo G. Carozza

Paolo G. Carozza

2009

Paolo Carozza, a citizen of the United States, was a Commissioner of the IACHR from January 1, 2006, to December 31, 2009. He was Chair of the IACHR in 2008 and First Vice-Chair in 2007. He served as Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from March 1, 2006, to March 4, 2008. In that capacity, he carried out a visit to Paraguay in September 2007, visiting the Xákmok Kásek community of the Enxet-Lengua people in the Paraguayan Chaco, which had in process before the IACHR a petition whose admissibility had been approved in 2003. Paolo Carozza was the Commission's delegate in the application filed with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on July 3, 2009. During the same visit to Paraguay, Paolo Carozza visited the Yakye Axa community of the Enxet-Lengua people in order to supervise compliance with the judgment issued by the Court on June 17, 2005. During his mandate as Rapporteur, Paolo Carozza called on States to respect the identity, lands, and territories of indigenous peoples. In March 2009, the Commission decided to put him in charge of the Unit for Human Rights Defenders. Paolo Carozza is an attorney who graduated from Harvard Law School, where he also was a postgraduate fellow in Public International Law. Prior to that, he attended Cambridge University on a fellowship. He is currently Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught numerous courses on human rights, international law, comparative law, and philosophy of law. He also teaches courses on European human rights law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and is a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. He has taught master’s seminars at the European Inter-University Institute for Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice and courses on human rights at the University of Trento in Italy. He has also taught courses on philosophy of law at the University of Milan Faculty of Law, was a visiting researcher and lecturer at the University of Chile, and is the author of numerous specialized publications.