Magdalena Sepúlveda

Magdalena Sepúlveda is Senior Research Associate at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). From 2008 to 2014 she was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Ms. Sepúlveda’s 20-year career has focused on the intersection of poverty, development and human rights and has bridged research and activism. She has worked as a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, as a staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as the Co-Director of the Department of International Law and Human Rights of the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica and as a Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy, in Geneva. She has also served as a consultant to several international organizations including UNWOMEN, UNHCR, ILO and OHCHR and worked with a range of NGOs in formal and informal capacities. She has published widely on human rights, poverty and development and has taught various post graduate courses at universities in Latin America. She is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the United Nations Committee of World Food Security and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of the International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). Ms. Sepúlveda is a Chilean lawyer who holds a Ph.D in International Law from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, an LL.M in human rights law from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and a post graduate diploma in comparative law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.