Jamaican for the IACHR

Jamaican national and senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies, Tracy Robinson, has been elected to serve on the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Robinson was elected at the 41st Regular Session of the Organisation of American States (OAS) held recently in El Salvador. She received the highest number of votes among the candidates, which included persons from Belize, Chile and Paraguay. She will serve a four-year term beginning January 1, 2012.

The IACHR is an autonomous organ of the OAS, whose primary function is to promote and protect the observance of human rights. The Commission, which has its headquarters in Washington DC, carries out investigations of human rights situations in OAS member states. It also represents all OAS members.

Robinson has served as consultant to a number of projects for international organisations, including the United Nations Women, formerly UN Development Fund for Women; United Nations Children's Fund and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). She has also helped to produce a number of reports on child support, poverty and gender equality, sex work and the law and family law in the OECS, among others.

Robinson was the recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship in 1992 while studying Law at Oxford University, and holds a Masters of Law degree from Yale University. She was admitted to the Jamaican Bar in 1997.