OFFICES | WORK AT CEJIL

The Board of Directors

CEJIL’s Board of Directors is comprised of prominent human rights defenders from Latin America and the Caribbean.

	José Miguel Vivanco *President* Director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch. He studied law at the University of Chile, Chile, and at the University of Salamanca, Spain. He also earned a Master in Law from Harvard University, and has been a law professor at Georgetown University and John Hopkins University in the United States. He has authored numerous articles on human rights and Latin America.
	Alejandro Garro *Vice-president* Law professor and researcher at Columbia University in New York. He studied law at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina; received his master of law at Louisiana State University, and his doctorate in law at Columbia University. He is a member of the bar associations of La Plata, Madrid and New York and an expert of the delegation of Argentina to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and before the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Private International Law of the OAS (CIDIP).
	Helen Mack Secretary President and founder of Miyrna Mack Foundation, an organization created after her sister’s murder committed by State agents. The Foundation works against impunity and promotes respect for human rights in Guatemala. Her work has achieved convictions of Guatemalan military and against the State. Among other accolades, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, awarded by the Swedish parliament and the King of Spain human rights’ award. .
	Mariclaire Acosta Urquidi Founder of the Mexican Commission of Defense and Promotion of Human Rights. She was Undersecretary of Human Rights and Democracy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico; director of the Department for the Promotion of Governance; Undersecretary for Political Affairs of the OAS and the Americas; and director for the International Center for Transitional Justice. In her career in the field of human rights, she has researched many topics: from the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. until the effects of violence in Colombia. She majored in sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Political Science at the University of Essex in Britain.
	Benjamín Cuéllar Salvadoran lawyer and political scientist who has studied in El Salvador and Mexico. Since 1992 heads the Human Rights Institute of the Universidad Centroamericana “Jose Simeon Canas " (IDHUCA) in San Salvador. Promoter of the social movement in his country during the seventies and founder and executive secretary of the Center "Fray Francisco de Vitoria" in Mexico City, from 1984 to 1991.
	Gastón Chillier Executive Director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) of Argentina. He is a lawyer graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and holds a Master in International Law and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame, in the United States. He has worked as an associate in Human Rights and Security, with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and as program director for Latin America at Global Rights.
	Gustavo Gallón Director and founder of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, Associate Judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, and former representative of the UN Commission of Human Rights for Equatorial Guinea. He is a lawyer graduated from Universidad Externado in Bogotá, Colombia, has a Master in Political Science from the University of Paris I, and has a PhD in political sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
	Sofía Macher President of the Reparations Council of Peru, responsible to develop the Single Registry of Victims. She was an executive secretary of the National Human Rights Commissioner and the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation in Peru. Among other awards, she has received the Legion of Honor from the French Government, and the Medal of Honor from the Peruvian Congress. She studied sociology at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima.
	Julieta Montaño Director of Legal Office for Women in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and the institutional representative of the Advisory Committee of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Defense of the Rights of Women (CLADEM). Attorney graduated from the Universidad Boliviana Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba, with postgraduate studies in political science and human rights in Bolivia and the University of Huelva, Spain.