Carlos Joel Zelada Acuña

Associate Professor of the School of Law of Universidad del Pacífico, where he works as Associate Professor in charge of the Public International Law subject. He is a Lawyer from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Harvard University where he studied as a Fulbright Foundation scholar. He also has postgraduate studies at the Academy of International Law in The Hague and the International Institute for Human Rights in Strasbourg. He is currently a member of the Board of the Global Campus of Human Rights. He is regionally recognized as an expert in the study of the intersections between dissident sexualities and the Law. His academic contributions on the discrimination suffered by the LGBTI population have been presented in different academic forums around the world and are frequently referred to by civil society as well as in institutional and governmental spaces. Recently, Zelada was appointed an expert before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Vicky Hernández and another v. Honduras, the first transfemicide case to reach said regional instance. Before his arrival at Universidad del Pacífico, Zelada worked for a decade as an official of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in addition to being a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization. During this period, he participated in regional efforts to decriminalize transgressions against honor as well as the recognition of access to information and health as human rights. In parallel, he was an adjunct Professor at George Washington University International Human Rights Clinic. Previously, he was linked to the advice of civil society organizations for the presentation of testimonies of serious human rights violations during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. In recent years, his research has focused on the study of the speeches of legal operators who participate in judicial processes where discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics is alleged. Among his most recent publications are: Are the advisory opinions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights binding ?: A reform proposal for a problem of yesteryear (2020), The invisible others: Towards a legal narrative for the prohibition of “genital-normalizing” surgeries (2019), Undisciplined bodies: Towards a cuir (queer) (cuy-r) look of the legal regulation of dissident sexualities (2018), Road to the altar ?: Equal marriage in International Law of Human Rights (2018), International standards for the recognition of trans * identities (2017), Trans * legalities: Preliminary study of files on the recognition of trans * identities in Peru (2017), and Between the shield and the sword: Equal marriage seen from the international public order and International Human Rights Law (2016).