Victor Madrigal-Borloz

Bio

Victor Madrigal-Borloz (Jurist, Costa Rica) is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Williams Institute in Los Angeles, California and the Eleanor Roosevelt Senior Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity (2018-2023) and a Member of the United Nations Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (2012-2016). 

Between 2013 and 2019 he served as Secretary-General of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and is former Legal Director of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Head of the Litigation and Registry Sections of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Team Leader for State and Law Reform at the Danish Institute for Human Rights. 

He has provided expert testimony to the members of the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, and to members and parliamentary commissions in over a dozen countries. During his tenure as Independent Expert he authored twelve thematic reports to the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council. 

His scholarship has appeared in a wide array of international journals, including the Harvard International Human Rights Law Journal and the yearbook on Human Rights and Development. He is a founding member of the Costa Rican Association of International Law, the International Human Rights Resource Center, and Synergia Initiatives for Human Rights. He holds a iuris doctor degree from the University of Costa Rica.