Chile | Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Inter-American Dialogue
Co-Director of Advocacy, Compliance, and Technical Cooperation on Human Rights at IHR LEGAL
Antonia Urrejola is a non-resident senior fellow with the Office of the President at the Inter-American Dialogue. Urrejola is a Chilean lawyer with extensive experience in various legal fields, including international law, human rights, and constitutional law. Her professional experience has mainly focused on the field of human rights, working in international organizations, NGOs, and government entities. She has held positions as a researcher, lawyer, advisor, project coordinator, commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile for one year during the government of President Gabriel Boric.
Urrejola is a lawyer from the University of Chile with a postgraduate degree in Human Rights and Transitional Justice. As a commissioner, she served on the Board of Directors and was President of the organization in 2021. During her term, from 2018 to 2021, she served as the Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples; Rapporteur for Memory, Truth, and Justice; and Rapporteur for Nicaragua. She was also the Rapporteur for Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana in 2020 and 2021. During 2018 and 2019, she was the Rapporteur for Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.
Urrejola has worked as a human rights advisor to the Presidency of Chile, particularly in the preparation and processing of draft laws related to human rights institutions, child rights, and sexual diversity. With the return to democracy in Chile, she worked in the newly created Special Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and later in the Ministry of National Assets and the Ministry of Planning and Cooperation, specializing in the rights of Indigenous Peoples. She has served as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, dealing with the Human Rights Program and the issues of Memory, Truth, and Justice, participating in the preparation and processing of various draft laws on national human rights institutions, political imprisonment, and torture, among others. She have also been a consultant for international organizations such as UNDP, ILO, FLACSO, CEJA, and IDB on issues related to Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, and the Inter-American Human Rights System, among others. She was the principal advisor to the former Secretary-General of the OAS between 2006 and 2011.
In July 2023 Urrejola was appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as international expert on obstacles to the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement in Colombia. She is currently member of the Panel of Independent Experts for the Election of High Courts in Guatemala (PEI-GT) and is working as an international consultant on issues of human rights and international relations. She is co-director of Advocacy, Compliance and Technical Cooperation on Human Rights at IHR LEGAL since July 2023.
Urrejola joined the Dialogue as a Member in 2024.
Non-resident senior fellow, Antonia Urrejola, has been appointed by the UN as an expert on the peace agreement in Colombia. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights made the appointment following a request from that organization to designate an international expert tasked with identifying and verifying obstacles to the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement.
