Dr Sandra Borda – Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Sandra Borda is an associate professor of Political Science and International Relations at Los Andes University (Bogota, Colombia). She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She has taught various classes on IR theories, Social Sciences Research Methods, Global Governance, Colombian and US Foreign Policy, and International Organizations. Her research agenda includes US foreign policy (she is currently the chair of the Center for American Studies), the internationalization of civil conflicts, regional integration, Colombia’s foreign policy, human rights, and international relations. She has been a visiting scholar at the ITAM (Mexico City), the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto and, the International Relations Department at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). Sandra was also a member of the Mission on Foreign Policy, a group of seven experts convened by the Colombian government with the purpose of formulating recommendations for its future foreign policy.
Dr Clara Burbano Herrera – Ghent University, Belgium
Clara Burbano-Herrera, PhD (Ghent University), LLM (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Postgraduate Degree in Constitutional Law (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), Law Degree (Universidad de los Andes), is a Fulbright Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (Harvard University) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University, where she also teaches Human Rights in Developing Countries. She was a Professor at the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and has lectured at the University of Pretoria (South Africa), the Universidad Iberoamericana (México), the University of Malta (Malta), the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú (Peru), the Universidad ICESI de Cali (Colombia) and the Universidad de Quetzaltenango (Guatemala). She is executive editor of the Inter-American & European Human Rights Journal, author of Provisional Measures in the Case Law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Intersentia Publishers 2012, 227p), and Las Medidas Provisionales en Caso de Vida o Muerte (Interim Measures in Cases of Life or Death) (Editorial Porrúa, 2013, 292p), co-author of Procederen voor het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens (The Procedure before the European Court of Human Rights) Intersentia Publishers, 2011, 467p). Currently, she is conducting research on the prevention of human rights violations in the Inter-American and in the African System of Human Rights, with a specific focus on the right to health.
Dr Par Engstrom – UCL Institute of the Americas, UK
Par Engstrom (BA UCL, MSc London, DPhil Oxford) is Lecturer in Human Rights of the Americas at the Institute of the Americas, University College London. He is also co-chair of the London Transitional Justice Network. His current research interests and publications focus on regional human rights institutions with a particular reference to the Inter-American human rights system, transitional justice, and the international relations of the Americas. He has conducted scholarly research on the IAHRS since 2003, and was awarded the Bapsybanoo Marchioness of Winchester Prize for best human rights thesis by Oxford University for his doctoral research on the IAHRS. He has given talks and invited lectures on the IAHRS at academic conferences, universities, and government agencies in Europe, the US, and Latin America. Prior to entering academia, Dr Engstrom worked at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva.
Dr Courtney Hillebrecht – University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.
Courtney Hillebrecht is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research focuses on the nexus between international human rights law and domestic politics. Her book, Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals: The Problem of Compliance, was recently published by Cambridge University Press (February 2014). Professor Hillebrecht’s research has also appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of human rights and political science journals, including Democratization, Human Rights Quarterly, Human Rights Review, the European Journal of International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis, among others. Professor Hillebrecht is also the co-editor, along with Patrice C. McMahon and Tyler White, of State Responses to Human Security: At Home and Abroad. She is currently working on a multi-method project on the deterrent effects of international criminal accountability. Professor Hillebrecht joined the UNL Faculty in 2010, after completing her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has held research fellowships at the Carr Center for Human Rights (Harvard University), and at the School of Human Rights Research at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Dr Alexandra Huneeus – University of Wisconsin, U.S.
Alexandra Huneeus has served as Associate Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin since 2007. Prior to this, Dr Huneeus was a fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She received her Ph.D. and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches public international law, international human rights, sociology of law, and Latin American law and is currently working on a project that examines the evolution of regional human rights systems, focusing on the Inter-American System for Human Rights. She is the editor (with Javier Couso and Rachel Sieder), of Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Articles include: “International Criminal Law by Other Means: the Quasi-Criminal Jurisdiction of the Human Rights Courts” in the American Journal of International Law, “Courts Resisting Courts: Lessons from the Inter-American Court’s Struggle to Enforce Human Rights” in the Cornell International Law Journal (44:3), and “Judging from a Guilty Conscience: The Chilean Judiciary’s Human Rights Turn” in Law and Social Inquiry (2010). As a fellow at the International Human Rights Clinic at Berkeley Law School in 2004, Dr Huneeus supervised students bringing a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She also worked on the case against Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Spain, through the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.
Peter Low – UCL Institute of the Americas, UK
Peter Low (BA Int. University of Leeds, MA Kings College London) serves as Network Facilitator of the Inter-American Human Rights Network at the Institute of the Americas, University College London. Prior to joining UCL, Peter spent several years living in Colombia, where he worked, in a variety of capacities, on human rights and development issues in the Andean region. Between 2010 and 2013, he ran the UK NGO the Peru Support Group, where he authored research pieces on artisanal and small-scale gold mining, and on a 2005 torture incident at a mine site in northern Peru (part of a collaborative project with Kings College London, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and others). He later worked, in co-operation with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on a variety of human rights and governance projects in Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, before joining UCL in mid-2014. In addition to his functions within the network, Peter regularly contributes articles on Andean politics to a number of subscription-based publications, runs a Latin America travel guide website and has authored a book on Colombian Spanish.
Dr Rossana Rocha Reis – University of São Paulo, Brazil
Rossana Rocha Reis holds a BA degree in Social Sciences from the State University of Campinas, a Master’s degree in Sociology from the State University of Campinas and a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of São Paulo. Currently she is a researcher at the Center of Support to Studies of Democratization and Development and is an associate professor in University of SãoPaulo’s Political Science Department, working in the undergraduate International Relations program. She is a researcher at the Contemporary Culture Studies Center, editor of the journals Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais (Brazilian Magazine of Social Sciences) and Lua Nova (New Moon), Revista de Cultura e Politica (Culture and Politics Magazine) and is author of the book Política de Imigração na França e nos Estados Unidos – Immigration Policy in France and the US (1980-1988). She also has experience in the field of Political Science, working primarily on immigration policy, nationality, citizenship, and human rights in the United States and France.
Dr Natalia Saltalamacchia Ziccardi – Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
Natalia Saltalamacchia Ziccardi is Researcher and Professor at the International Studies department of ITAM (Mexico) and currently directs the degree programme in International Relations at ITAM. She holds a degree in International Relations from ITAM, obtained a Master’s at Johns Hopkins University and her doctorate from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her many publications include “Derechos humanos en la política exterior. Seis casos latinoamericanos”, Miguel Ángel Porrúa/ITAM, 2011, edited with Ana Covarrubias; “México y América Latina. La vía multilateral” in Olga Pellicer and Guadalupe González (eds.), Los retos internacionales de México: urgencia de una nueva mirada, México, Siglo XXI, 2011; “Derechos humanos: un espejo para México” in Revista Nexos June 2012 (with Pedro Salazar), and “1968 y los derechos humanos en México”, in Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, February 2009.
Dr Clara Sandoval – University of Essex, School of Law
Clara Sandoval is a qualified lawyer, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at Essex University, and Director of the Essex Transitional Justice Network. She teaches and researches on areas related to the Inter-American System of Human Rights, Transitional Justice, Legal Theory and Business and Human Rights. One of her research interests is reparations for gross human rights violations, serious violations of humanitarian law and for international crimes. A list of her more recent publications in this area is available here. Besides her academic commitments, Clara also engages in human rights litigation at the domestic level and within the Inter-American System; and in training and capacity building with organisations such as REDRESS and the International Bar Association (IBA). Clara has been a consultant for the International Criminal Court on reparations and for the OHCHR on reparations and broader issues concerning transitional justice. Clara is a member of the Human Rights International Council of the Human Rights Institute of the IBA.