James Cavallaro
Co-Founder and Executive Director
James (Jim) Cavallaro is co-founder and Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights. He is a Professor of the Practice at Wesleyan University and a Visiting Professor at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Prior to co-founding the University Network, he served as a professor of law at Stanford Law School (2011-2019) and a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School (2002-2011). At both Harvard and Stanford, he established and directed human rights clinics and ran human rights centers. In 2014, Cavallaro introduced human rights advocacy into the undergraduate curriculum at Stanford. Cavallaro has overseen dozens of projects with scores of students in over twenty countries. In June 2013, Cavallaro was elected to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He served as President of that body from 2016-2017.
Jim Cavallaro has dedicated his thirty-year career to human rights advocacy. He has been actively involved in the defense of rights, critical reflection on the human rights movement, and the promotion of accountability at the international level. A prolific scholar and sought-after voice on international human rights issues, he is frequently called upon by the media and civil society to offer his expertise. Cavallaro received his BA from Harvard University and his JD from Berkeley Law School. He also holds a doctorate in human rights and development (Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain). In 1994, he opened a joint office for Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law in Rio de Janeiro and served as director, overseeing research, reporting, and litigation before the Inter-American system’s human rights bodies. In 1999, he founded the Global Justice Center, a leading Brazilian human rights NGO. Cavallaro has authored or co-authored dozens of books, reports, and articles on human rights issues, a list of which is available below. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
A list of over 100 of his publications is available here.
Among his most recent publications in English are:
More than Lack of Capacity: Active Impunity in Mexico (Journal of Human Rights Practice, September 2023). Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz, Patricia Cruz-Marín, and James Cavallaro argue that high levels of grave rights abuse in Mexico can be understood, at least in part, by ‘active impunity’, defined as deliberate efforts by authorities to undermine criminal investigations.
The ICC’s Best Bet: Look to Regional Systems (ICC Forum 2022). Cavallaro and O’Connell “argue that the ICC has overemphasized prosecution and underemphasized complementarity…[They] counsel the ICC to learn from these bodies and move beyond its excessive focus on prosecution.”
Towards a Governance Model of Ungovernable Prisons: How Recognition of Inmate Organizations, Dialogue, and Mutual Respect Can Transform Violent Prisons in Latin America (Catholic University Law Review 2021).
Doctrine, Practice, and Advocacy in the Inter-American Human Rights System (Oxford University Press 2019). This is first-ever casebook on the Inter-American system published in English.
When Prosecution is Not Enough: How the International Criminal Court Can Prevent Atrocity and Advance Accountability by Emulating Regional Human Rights Institutions (The Yale Journal of International Law 2020). In this article, the authors argue that the International Criminal Court could become a more effective body if it applied lessons learned from regional human rights bodies, like the Inter-American Commission.
Reducing Bias in Human Rights Fact-Finding:The Potential of the Clinical Simulation Model to Overcome Ethical, Practical, and Cultural Tensions in “Foreign” Contexts (Human Rights Quarterly, 2020). Cavallaro and Sridhar explicate a novel form of pedagogical intervention, a human rights fact-finding and documentation simulation. This simulation allows students to navigate the tensions inherent in human rights practice without risking hurting or re-traumatizing communities affected by rights abuse.