Ms. Paula Gaviria Betancur

Ms. Paula Gaviria Betancur was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in September 2022 and assumed the role on 1 November 2022. She is a human rights lawyer and a forced displacement expert with over two decades of experience in human rights and humanitarian affairs with civil society, the judicial sector, academia and government. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Compaz Foundation. From 2019 to 2021, she was a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, and prior to this served as Human Rights Advisor to the President of Colombia, where her role was key in ensuring the victims’ participation in the negotiations. Before that, she supported the preparation and implementation of the country’s 2011 Victims’ Law and directed its Victims Unit, overseeing the development of the Victims Registry. Previously she acted as Director of Human Rights Promotion at the Ombudsman Office of Colombia.