UWI Mona Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Tracy Robinson has been elected Chair of the Board of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
 
The board of officers elected on March 20 is composed of Tracy Robinson (Jamaica), Chair; Rose Marie Antoine (Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago), First Vice-Chair; and Felipe González (Chile), Second Vice-Chair. The election was held, in accordance with the IACHR rules of procedure, at the beginning of the Commission’s 150th regular Period of Sessions. The other members of the IACHR are José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez, Rosa María Ortiz, Paulo Vannuchi and James Cavallaro. The Executive Secretary is Emilio Alvarez Icaza (Mexico).
 
Commissioner Tracy Robinson is a citizen of Jamaica. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She is a lawyer and teaches Gender and the Law, Constitutional Law and Commonwealth Caribbean Human Rights, among other law subjects, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.
 
She has been a consultant for international agencies such as the United Nations Fund for Women and UNICEF, and she has advised Caribbean governments on topics related to legislation on gender and children rights, among others. Commissioner Robinson has been editor of the Caribbean Law Bulletin and she has written and published reports on a range of topics, including gender, the rights of LGTBI persons, sexual harassment, sexual rights, sex work and the law, and the rights of the child. She has a Bachelor of Law from University of the West Indies and an LLM from the University of Yale, as well as a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from Oxford University.
 
A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.
 
Source: OAS website