James Cavallaro
James Louis Cavallaro is a professor of law and the co-founder and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights. He teaches human rights at Wesleyan University, where he is a director of the Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, as well as the Wesleyan ACTS for Human Rights program. In addition to Wesleyan, Cavallaro frequently teaches at Yale Law School, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He also teaches at Columbia Law School and the University of California Berkeley. Prior to launching the University Network, Cavallaro founded the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at the Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School, United States. In 2018, Cavallaro and Ruhan Nagra founded the University Network for Human Rights, an organization that engages undergraduates and graduate students and their universities in human rights work in the United States and around the world. Cavallaro served as a commissioner and President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Education
Cavallaro received his BA from Harvard University and his JD from University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where he served on the California Law Review and graduated with Order of the Coif honors. He also holds a doctorate in human rights and development from Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain.Career in practice
Early in his career, Cavallaro spent several years working with Central American refugees on the U.S.-Mexican border and with human rights groups in Chile challenging abuses by the Pinochet government. In 1994, he opened a joint office for Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law in Rio de Janeiro and served as Director of the office, overseeing research, reporting and litigation against Brazil before the Inter-American system's human rights bodies. In 1999, he founded the Global Justice Center, which is now a leading Brazilian human rights nongovernmental organization.Cavallaro served as Commissioner and President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. During his tenure, Cavallaro led the Commission through its most severe financial crisis in recent history and oversaw the creation of the first-ever expert group convened to address forced disappearances in Mexico. Expert groups have since become an important mechanism of the Commission to respond to human rights crises. As the body’s Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty, Cavallaro visited and documented conditions in scores of detention centers in the Americas, urging States to reduce mass incarceration, particularly of those facing trial and individuals in situations of vulnerability.
Cavallaro authored or co-authored a number of reports on rights in Latin America, including: "Frontier Injustice: Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico Persist Amid Climate of Impunity", ; Police Brutality in Urban Brazil ; Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions: An Approximation of the Situation in Brazil ; Behind Bars in Brazil.