Cecilia Medina Quiroga

CECILIA MEDINA, is a Chilean lawyer (University of Chile) and Doctor in Law (University of Utrecht). She teaches International Human Rights Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Chile and is the Co-Director of the Law Faculty’s Human Rights Center. She has taught in several European and North American Universities and was appointed to the Robert F. Kennedy Chair for distinguished Latin American academics at Harvard Law School (1997).

She is a former member (1995-2002) and Chairperson (1999-2001) of the United Nations Human Rights Committee and in 2003 was elected to serve as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and is now the Court’s Vice-President. She has worked as an expert and advisor to many international and national organizations, is a member of the editorial board of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and of the Editorial Review Board of the Human Rights Quarterly, and has published extensively in the field of International Human Rights Law.

In recognition of her work, Cecilia Medina received the 2006 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize. She has also been given the 2002 Equality Now award for lifelong commitment to Human Rights (New York), the Elena Caffarena Award (Chile), and the 2004 Prominent Women in International Law Award from the American Association of International Law. She is a Ridder of the Order Oranje Nassau, decoration of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.