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Maria Clara Galvis

Maria Clara Galvis is a lawyer from the Externado University of Colombia. Professor Galvis has graduate studies in Compared Constitutional Law from the Universitá Degli Studi di Genova. Maria Clara Galvis Patiño is a Professor of International Human Rights Law and International Public Law at Universidad Externado de Colombia. She also teaches United Nations Human Rights System in the Program of Advanced Studies on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at 51³Ô¹Ï’s Washington College of Law. Between July 2015 and June 2019, she was a member of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, of which she was Vice-Chair from 2017 to 2019. In her professional career she has served as human rights advisor for State institutions in Colombia, like the Attorney General’s Office and the Inspector General’s Office. She has also served as an assistant to judge at the High Council of the Judiciary and as National Director for the promotion and dissemination of human rights at the national human rights institution of Colombia. She has worked for regional human rights organizations, as a senior attorney at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), where she represented victims of human rights violations before the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights, and as a senior legal advisor at the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), where she conducted research on Inter-American law, access to justice, business and human rights, indigenous peoples' rights and transitional justice. María Clara has been convoked by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights at the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as an expert to declare on the international responsibility of the State in cases of forced disappearance. She has lectured about international human rights law at different universities in 15 countries in Latin America and in Europe (Italy, Spain and Germany).

Currently Teaching

Sistema de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas (LAW-870-001)

Areas of Specialization

• International Human Rights/Humanitarian Laws
• Constitutional Law