SALVADOR ZARAGOZA
Advisory Director

Salvador Leyva Morelos-Zaragoza: is a Mexican human rights lawyer. Salvador Leyva earned his law degree from the Universidad Marista de Mérida, Yucatán, México in 2014, and an International Human Rights Law Degree (LLM cum laude) from the University of Notre Dame in 2018. He is the Technical Secretary for Combating Torture, Cruel and Inhumane Treatment, Federal Institute of the Public Defender in Mexico since 2019, in charge of a team that identifes and document cases of torture committed since since 1998, and works on legal actions nationwide on behalf of people who suffered violation to their integrity and dignity, since their detention. During law school, he worked as a legal intern within the Federal and State Judiciary. Between 2014 and 2015 he did a professional visit at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, handling cases related to enforced disappearences, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions and extraditions.

In 2015 Salvador was the attorney of La 72, Hogar-Refugio para Personas Migrantes in the southern border in Mexico, where he handled cases related to asylum seekers and crime victims. He is a recipient of the Romulo Gallegos Fellowship granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, where he worked in 2016 at the Petitions and Cases Group, handling cases related to gross human rights violations in the Americas. In 2018 he worked as a Legal Official at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organizations based in Washington, D.C., in cases related to human rights violations committed against trans women in Honduras and journalists in Colombia, under the supervision of the International Human Rights specialist, Angelita Baeyens. Between 2018 and 2019, he worked as a Human Rights Specialist at the Inter-American Human Rights Commission 's Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI) in Managua, Nicaragua. Salvador is the author of several articles related to human rights violations.

TWITTER