Victor Madrigal-Borloz

Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a Practitioner-in-Residence at the International Human Rights Clinic, where he works with students on projects related to sexual orientation and gender identity.  He is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and, since 2019, the Eleanor Roosevelt Senior Visiting Researcher at the Human Rights Program.  

From 2018 to 2023, Mr. Madrigal-Borloz was the UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. In this capacity, he assessed the implementation of international human rights law, raised awareness, engaged in dialogue with all relevant stakeholders, and provided advisory services, technical assistance, capacity-building to help address violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of the sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Until June 2019, Mr. Madrigal-Borloz served as the Secretary-General of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), a global network of over 150 rehabilitation centers with the vision of full enjoyment of the right to rehabilitation for all victims of torture and ill treatment. A member of the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture from 2013 to 2016, Mr. Madrigal-Borloz was Rapporteur on Reprisals and oversaw a draft policy on the torture and ill-treatment of LGBTI persons. Prior to this he led technical work on numerous cases, reports and testimonies as Head of Litigation and Head of the Registry at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He has also worked at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (Copenhagen, Denmark) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (San José, Costa Rica). 

Mr. Madrigal-Borloz is a founding member of the Costa Rican Association of International Law (ACODI), a founding Board member of the International Justice Resource Centre (IJRC), and a founding Board member of Synergia-IDH. He has also served as the Chair of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council since August 2021. A Costa Rican jurist, he obtained his Law Degrees (Bachelor, Licenciate) at the University of Costa Rica (1994, 1995) and a Diploma at the International Institute for Human Rights (Strasbourg, 1997).