Georgetown Americas Institute

Featuring

Luis Almagro is the secretary-general for the Organization of American States. Prior to his election, Almagro served in various diplomatic posts in addition to holding numerous positions in the Uruguayan government. He served as Uruguay’s minister of foreign affairs from 2010 to 2015, prior to which he was Uruguay’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. He also served as an advisor to then Minister José Mujica before being appointed director of the International Affairs Unit of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries in 2005. His diplomatic career began in 1998 when he was appointed representative of Uruguay for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. During this time he also headed the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries in the United Nations and was coordinator of the Group of 77 and China. Almagro was the national coordinator for the Group of Temperate Southern Hemispheric Countries on the Environment (the Valdivia Group) from 1997 to 1998. Prior to that he served five years as chargé d’affaires at the Embassy of Uruguay in Iran. Between 1989 and 1991 he presided over the International Cooperation Committee of the National Drug Board in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Almagro holds a law degree from the Universidad de la República and has taken several courses in diplomacy in the Artigas Foreign Service Institute.

Juan Sebastian Anaya is an advocacy advisor at Fundación Gaia Amazonas in Colombia. Sebastian is a lawyer and political scientist with a master's degree in environmental policy and sustainability management from the New School University in New York City. He has over 12 years of professional experience in agrarian affairs and environmental policy. He has worked for Colombian and international NGOs, the United Nations Development Program and Food and Agriculture Organization for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the government of Colombia as the national coordinator of land access for ethnic and peasant communities.

Silvana Baldovino Beas is a lawyer who graduated from the University of Lima with a  specialty in environmental and natural resources law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). She has more than 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors, designing and implementing public strategies and policies in various aspects related to environmental issues and indigenous peoples, with emphasis on the protection and promotion of biodiversity. Her approach focuses on rights-based conservation and the defense of the collective rights of indigenous peoples and vulnerable populations, under the human rights approach. Currently, she is director of the Biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples Program of the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law (SPDA), an institution where she has worked since 2006.

Oscar Campanini is a Bolivian research sociologist who focuses on problems related to water, sanitation, mining, extractivism, natural resources, and human and environmental rights. He is currently director of the Bolivian Documentation and Information Center (CEDIB).

Diana Kapiszewski is director of the Center for Latin American Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Her research examines judicial politics and the intersections between law and politics more broadly in Latin America. Her current projects explore institutions of electoral governance in Latin America, the architecture of accountability in Latin America, and the judicialization of electoral governance in Brazil and Mexico. She also directs the program States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America (SIGLA). Kapiszewski has published extensively on practices for generating qualitative data and field research, and on making qualitative research transparent; she also co-edits the Cambridge University Press book series, Methods for Social Inquiry. She has published several books with Cambridge University Press, and multiple articles in Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics and Society, Law and Social Inquiry, Law and Society Review, Perspectives on Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, and other peer-reviewed outlets. She received her Ph.D. in political science from University of California Berkeley.

Olnar Ortiz is a leader in the Indígena del Pueblo Bare de la Amazonia Venezolana. Ortiz is also a lawyer and graduated from the Bicentenario University of Aragua (UBA) in 2001. He has received various honors and certificates, including Specialist in Civil Procedural Law, UBA, Venezuela; Expert in Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, DEUSTO University; and Fellow of the NGO People in Need. He has previously served as president of the Bar Association of the Indigenous State of Amazonas, national coordinator of Indigenous Peoples and Amazonas chapter of Penal Forum, regional coordinator of the National Human Rights Commission of the Federation of Bar Associations of Venezuela, and as a member of the Bolivarian Indigenous Confederation of Amazonas. He currently holds the role of national human rights coordinator of Indigenous peoples of Venezuela (INPREABOGADO) since 2022. He was formerly the field monitor and project advisor with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and is a United Nations volunteer in Venezuela.

Katya Salazar is executive director of the Due Process Foundation (DPLF), an organization based in Washington, DC, that promotes the rule of law and human rights in Latin America through research, visibility, and advocacy. Before leading DPLF, Salazar was an investigator for the Truth Commission of Peru and the ombudsman of the country. She is a lawyer with a degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and an LL.M. from the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Walter Quertehuari Dariquebe is an indigenous leader of the Wachiperi – Harakbut  people. The group belongs to the Queros native community, one of the 10 native communities that are members of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. He is a secondary education professional with a specialty in natural sciences, biology and ecology. Currently, he serves as president of the Executor of the Administration Contract of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (ECA Amarakaeri), obtaining very important achievements such as the entry of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve to the prestigious IUCN Green List, the 2019 Equatorial Prize for facing climate change and strengthening and implementing the REDD+ Indigenous Amazonian (RIA) climate ambition proposal, which contributes to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Cristina Vollmer de Burelli is the CEO and co-founder of V5 Initiative. Since 2015, this foundation has led and supported initiatives that promote social enterprises on issues of environment, sustainability, transparency, and democracy. Burelli studied social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. She is also on the board of directors of the Orchestra of the Americas and is president and co-founder of the Global Leaders Institute. She serves as president of Cambridge in America’s Washington, DC Advisory Committee. In 2018, together with experts inside and outside Venezuela, Cristina founded SOS Orinoco—a multidisciplinary research group of renowned professionals and activists in Venezuela who work anonymously, due to the high risk that this type of research entails. Their commitment has been to document and carry out an in-depth diagnosis of the south of the Orinoco River and raise awareness about the tragedy that is occurring, as well as outline measures that will be must be adopted to stop and reverse this disaster.