Camilo Umaña is a lawyer and human rights expert from Colombia. He has extensive experience in public policy, academia, and civil society organizations from an interdisciplinary approach. He holds a PhD in Criminology from the University of Ottawa (Canada) and a PhD in Sociology of Law from the University of the Basque Country (Spain).
In his most recent position as Colombia’s Deputy Minister of Justice, he has focused on developing public policies in three main fields: the penitentiary system, drugs, and transitional justice. He has led several initiatives, including the design and implementation of a policy of humanization of the criminal and the prison system, the formulation of a new drug policy based on human rights standards, and the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms for the location of disappeared persons, the truth commission’s recommendations regarding justice, and the prevention of torture.
His interest in the championing of human rights has guided his trajectory. This includes supporting Colombia’s Truth Commission by leading the research on access to justice and impunity in the internal armed conflict for the final report. He has also assisted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on transitional justice for the emergence of various institutions derived from the Peace Agreement with the FARC guerrilla group.
Additionally, he has worked for the National Ombudsman as an expert on restorative justice and several human rights organizations in Colombia, Mexico, and the US, litigating and conducting research to provide human rights NGOs with tools to strengthen their work. He has been a constitutional law professor for over seven years and co-directed the human rights master’s program at Externado University.
ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Affiliations