Ariel E. Dulitzky

Ariel Dulitzky is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer and Director of the Latin America Initiative. He is also an affiliated faculty member of several interdisciplinary centers at the University of Texas, including the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, and the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies. Professor Dulitzky is widely regarded as a leading expert on the international human rights law, with decades of experience as a scholar, practitioner, and international human rights advocate.

In 2010, Professor Dulitzky was appointed to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, one of the UN’s core special procedures addressing grave human rights violations worldwide. He was elected Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group from 2013 to 2015, a role in which he provided global leadership on issues related to enforced disappearance, state accountability, and victims’ rights. Prior to joining the University of Texas, he served as Assistant Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), one of the principal human rights bodies of the Organization of American States, where he played a central role in advancing regional human rights standards and mechanisms.

Professor Dulitzky is an honors graduate of the University of Buenos Aires School of Law, where he served as an editor of the Law Review. He received his Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Harvard Law School in 1999 and was an editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Early in his career, he served as a law clerk for a Federal Circuit Court in Argentina, grounding his academic work in practical judicial experience.

A native of Argentina, Professor Dulitzky has devoted his professional life to the promotion and protection of human rights through both scholarly research and legal practice. His expertise is rooted in sustained, hands-on engagement with human rights advocacy, particularly in the Americas and in international litigation. He has directed or participated in the litigation of more than 100 cases before the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, representing victims of serious human rights violations and contributing to landmark jurisprudence.

Professor Dulitzky’s scholarly work spans a wide range of topics, including international and inter-American human rights law, enforced disappearances, sports and human rights, Judaism and human rights, racial discrimination, Afro-descendant and Indigenous collective rights, and the rule of law in Latin America. He has taught at leading academic institutions in the United States and abroad, including the University of Buenos Aires, Tulane University, Tel Aviv University, and the Washington College of Law at American University.

In recognition of his distinguished career, Professor Dulitzky received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award from Harvard Law School in 2007. He is a member of the International Human Rights Committee of the State Bar of Texas and he served on the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. His advisory work includes assisting in the creation of the IACHR’s Special Rapporteurship on the Rights of Afro-Descendants, contributing to Amnesty International’s Fair Trial Manual, and serving on the advisory panel for the revision of the UN Manual on the Prevention and Investigation of Extralegal, Arbitrary, and Summary Executions.