Diego García-Sayán
OC OSP gcYC
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Assumed office
13 December 2016
Preceded byMónica Pinto
President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
In office
1 January 2010 – 1 January 2014
Preceded byCecilia Medina
Succeeded byHumberto Sierra
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
28 July 2001 – 12 July 2002
PresidentAlejandro Toledo
Prime MinisterRoberto Dañino
Preceded byJavier Pérez de Cuéllar
Succeeded byAllan Wagner Tizón
Minister of Justice and Human Rights
In office
27 November 2000 – 28 July 2001
PresidentValentín Paniagua
Prime MinisterJavier Pérez de Cuéllar
Preceded byAlberto Bustamante Belaúnde
Succeeded byFernando Olivera
Personal details
Born
Diego García-Sayán Larrabure

(1950-08-02) 2 August 1950
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
SpouseEda Rivas Franchini
Parent(s)Enrique García-Sayán
Carmen Larrabure
EducationPontifical Catholic University of Peru

Diego García-Sayán Larrabure (born August 2, 1950) is a Peruvian lawyer and former Foreign Affairs Minister of Perú. He sat as judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and was president of the Court between 2010 and 2012.[1] He was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.[2]

On August 15, 2014, the Peruvian Government formally announced its launching of Dr. Garcia-Sayan's candidacy in the upcoming 2015 election for the post of Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), a decision which was rescinded unilaterally by the candidate himself on October 1, 2014, as a result of what he said was the said Government's lack of proper support towards that end.

Biography

García Sayán was born in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest son of Dr. Enrique García-Sayán, a former Foreign Affairs Minister of Perú who, in 1946, was associated, along with President José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, with launching the so-called "200 Nautical Miles (370.4 km) Territorial Doctrine", currently being adhered to and claimed by Benin, Congo, Ecuador, El Salvador, Liberia, Perú and Somalia. After the 1948 coup d´état which overthrew the constitutionally elected Government of President Bustamante, Dr. García-Sayán went into exile, working with the United Nations first in New York, then in Geneva, which led a year later to his son Diego's birth in the United States.

Professional and political activities

García-Sayán co-founded the Peruvian Center for International Studies (CEPEI) in 1980. He subsequently founded the Andean Commission of Jurists[3] (CAJ) in 1982 and served as executive director until 2000 except for a brief hiatus from 1992 to 1994. He is also a member of Washington D.C. based think tank the Inter-American Dialogue.[4]

He also worked for the United Nations in many expert and senior positions. He has served as member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances from 1988 to 2004, including as chairperson of the mechanism.[5] From 1991 to 1992 he joined the UN Negotiating Team appointed by Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to mediate into the Guatemalan Peace Process between the Government and the URNG. From 1992 to 1994 he worked as Director of the Human Rights Division within the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL).

On 1995 he joined former United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in his unsuccessful bid for the Presidency of the Republic of Peru against the incumbent candidate President Alberto Fujimori, and won a seat in the Congress.[6] under the banner of the political party "Union por el Peru". Following the political collapse[7] of the Fujimori's regime a Transitional Government was formed and Garcia-Sayan was called by President Valentin Paniagua to serve as Minister of Justice from 2000 to 2001. Newly elected President Alejandro Toledo appointed Garcia-Sayan as Minister of Foreign Affairs, holding the post from 2001 to 2002.[8]

The 33rd period of General Assembly of the Organization of American States held in Santiago de Chile in 2003 elected Garcia-Sayan to serve a six-years term as Justice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights starting in 2004 and he served as the Court's vice-president for the 2008–09 period. Re-elected for a second mandate, he served as President of the Court for the 2010-12 period.[8]

On 27 January 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres designated him a member of the Selection Mechanism for the Special Jurisdiction of Peace, established in Colombia in 2016.[9]

Also, since January 2017 he is Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers for the United Nations.[10] He is also currently serving as an advisory board member of the Global Judicial Integrity Network at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).[11]

Education

García Sayán attended the "Santa Maria" School, graduating from high-school in 1967. He then attended the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in Lima, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1969. He continued his studies at the University of Texas, at Austin in 1970, and returned to the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru for his law degree in 1975, where he has, since then, also taught law.

On his spare time, Mr. García Sayán is a percussionist and motorcycle enthusiast, the former from his times as a teenager, when he and several of his school friends as well as others from other schools, formed the rock group Los Hang Ten's.

References

  1. ↑ "3D homepage, Bio". Archived from the original on 7 October 2006. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  2. ↑ "OHCHR | Mr. Diego García-Sayán". OHCHR. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  3. ↑ "Comisión Andina de Juristias". www.cajpe.org.pe. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  4. ↑ "Inter-American Dialogue | Diego García-Sayán". www.thedialogue.org. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
  5. ↑ "OHCHR | Current and Former Mandate-Holders for Existing Mandates". OHCHR. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  6. ↑ "DIEGO GARCÍA-SAYÁN LARRABURE". www.congreso.gob.pe. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  7. ↑ Crabtree, John (2001). "The Collapse of Fujimorismo: Authoritarianism and Its Limits". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 20 (3): 287–303. ISSN 0261-3050.
  8. 1 2 "Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Spanish language". Archived from the original on 24 October 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  9. ↑ "Secretary-General Appoints Diego Garcia-Sayan of Peru as Member of Selection Mechanism, Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia". United Nations.
  10. ↑ "Diego García-Sayán, nuevo relator especial sobre sobre jueces de la ONU". Confilegal (in Spanish). 13 December 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  11. ↑ UNODC. "Advisory Board". www.unodc.org. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diego García-Sayán.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.