Video still of Paulo Pinheiro

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro

Brown University

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro is the chairman of the UN’s International Commission of Inquiry for Syria. At the time of filming, he was a Cogut visiting professor in Latin American Studies at Brown University. He is a professor (retired) of political science and a research associate at the Center for the Study of Violence at the Universidade de São Paulo. Pinheiro holds a Ph.D. in political science and a graduate degree in sociology from the University of Paris. He has authored and coauthored a wide range of books, articles, and reports, including Brasil: Um Século de Transformações (with J. Wilheim and I. Sachs, Companhia das Letras 2001); and The (Un)Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America (with J.E. Méndez and G. O’Donnell, Notre Dame University Press, 1999). In addition to his scholarly work, Pinheiro has focused much of his career on human rights. He has served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, and was special rapporteur from 1995-2000 in Burundi. He led the research team producing the UN’s “2006 World Report on Violence against Children,” as a UN assistant secretary-general appointed to study the issue. He has served as a member of the Justice and Peace Commission in São Paulo. He also served as secretary of state for human rights under Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Pinheiro’s videos are used in these Choices Program curriculum units:
Competing Visions of Human Rights: Questions for U.S. Policy
Confronting Genocide: Never Again?
The United Nations: Challenges and Change

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