James (Jim) Cavallaro is a visiting professor at the Jackson School of Global Affairs and a Professor at Wesleyan University. Since 2020, he has taught at Yale Law School.
Cavallaro’s research, writing and practice engage human rights and social justice, with an emphasis on the Americas. He is a co-founder and Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights. Prior to launching the University Network, Cavallaro served as a professor at Stanford Law School (2011-2019) and as a clinical professor at Harvard Law School (2002-2011); at both schools he founded and directed the international human rights clinic. Prior to that, he lived and worked in Chile (1988-1990) and Brazil (1994-2002) with domestic and international rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch. Over the course of over three decades, he has overseen dozens of projects with scores of students in nearly 30 countries. In June 2013, Cavallaro was elected to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the 2014-2017 term. He served as President of that body from 2016-2017. Cavallaro is the author of the leading English language casebook on the Inter-American system for the protection of human rights (Oxford University Press 2019). A list of over 100 of his publications, with links to many, is available here.
Cavallaro holds an A.B. from Harvard, a J.D. from Berkeley Law and a Ph.D from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain. He speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently, and is proficient in Italian and French.