Entrevista com Juan Méndez, presidente do International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)

Abstract

Juan Mendez is a lawyer who for decades has dedicated his career to the defenseof human rights. As a result of his work representing political prisoners during theArgentine military regime, he was himself arrested and subjected to torture. Aformer member of Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Institute ofHuman Rights, Mendez also headed the Center for Civil and Human Rights at theUniversity of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, and for three years was a member of theInter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS). InJuly 2004, he was appointed United Nations Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, aposition he held until recently. President of the International Center for Transitional Justice, healso serves on the boards of directors of the Center for Justice and International Law, GlobalRights and the Open Society Justice Initiative, and is an advisor to the Social Science ResearchCouncil’s Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum and the American Bar Association Center forHuman Rights. He has lectured at Georgetown Law School, at the Johns Hopkins School ofAdvanced International Studies and at Oxford, and has received several human rights awards,among them the Monsignor Oscar A. Romero Award, presented in April 2000 by the Universityof Dayton for his leadership in service to human rights, and the Jeanne and Joseph SullivanAward of the Heartland Alliance, in May 2003.JUAN MENDEZ