Professor Francisco Rivera Juaristi is a Puerto Rican human rights lawyer who joined Santa Clara Law in 2012. He is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Founding Director of the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic. He also regularly directs the law school’s summer abroad programs in Geneva and Costa Rica, where he teaches international human rights law, and he co-teaches a course called “Spanish for Lawyers.” 

Prof. Rivera has worked in the field of human rights for over 25 years. He has worked on dozens of human rights cases and projects before local, national, regional, and international fora. He is a former Senior Attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States. In the late 1990s, he also served as Executive Director of Amnesty International in Puerto Rico. He has been a consultant for several non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies, including the International Labor Organization and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. 

Prof. Rivera is a published author of several works, including on indigenous land rights, business and human rights, the right to a healthy environment, and on the gaps in international human rights law to address violence against women and girls, among other topics. He serves on the Board of Directors of Every Woman Treaty, a global coalition that seeks the adoption of a new global treaty to address violence against women and girls.