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Juan E. Méndez is the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the author – with Marjorie Wentworth – of “Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights” (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, October 2011). Until May 2009 he was the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Concurrently, he was Kofi Annan’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide (2004 to 2007). Between 2000 and 2003 he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and its President in 2002. He teaches human rights at American University in Washington and at Oxford University (UK). In the past he has taught also at Notre Dame Law School (USA), Georgetown and Johns Hopkins. He worked for Human Rights Watch (1982-1996) and directed the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica (1996-1999). As a labor and human rights lawyer in Argentina, Méndez was himself imprisoned and tortured during Argentina’s “Dirty War.”  

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