Professor Contesse received his LL.M. and J.S.D. from Yale Law School where he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Senior Editor of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. He was a Crowley Fellow in International Human Rights at Fordham University School of Law, a visiting professor at the University of Miami School of Law, a visiting resource professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and an assistant professor at Diego Portales University School of Law in Santiago, Chile, from which he received his degree in law and social sciences and where is currently a permanent visiting professor. Prior to joining the Rutgers’ faculty, he was a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights and served as a board member for Chile’s National Human Rights Institute.
Professor Contesse has litigated and acted as expert witness in cases before both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, on issues regarding sexual orientation, the use of anti-terrorist laws, freedom of expression and the rights of indigenous peoples.