Rutgers Law Professor Elected to the United Nations Committee Against Torture

Rutgers Law Professor Jorge Contesse was elected to the United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture (CAT) on October 19, 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland.  This is one of the most prestigious posts in the field of international human rights. Professor Contesse joins nine other independent human rights experts who monitor compliance of the UN Convention Against Torture by state parties. Members are elected to a four-year term and can be re-elected if nominated.

In March 2023, the government of Chile nominated Professor Contesse, a native of Chile, to the Committee. He was elected in the first round and received the highest number of votes for new Committee members.

“I am extremely honored to have been elected to the UN Committee Against Torture,” Contesse said. “At a time of immense challenges to the international rule of law, I look forward to working with current and new members to uphold the norms of international human rights law.”

Rutgers Law Dean Johanna Bond remarked, "This is an amazing accomplishment and a rare honor."

Professor Contesse is a scholar of international human rights and comparative constitutional law, focusing on the judicialization of international law and on the interaction between domestic constitutional actors and international human rights regimes, in particular, the inter-American human rights system. His work has appeared in the American Journal of International Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, and the Yale Journal of International Law, among others. Prior to joining the Rutgers Law faculty, he was a Lecturer-in-Law and Director of the Human Rights Center at Diego Portales Law School in Santiago, where he is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Doctoral Program. He is also the founding director of the Rutgers Center for Transnational Law.