On June 4, Dinah Shelton ’70 became the first American woman elected Commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Voted in by the Organization of American States General Assembly, Shelton—a leading authority on international law and a prize-winning author—will begin serving her four-year term in January 2010.
The seven-member commission reviews and investigates human rights cases within the framework of the inter-American system’s legal instruments. A professor at George Washington University Law School, Shelton was nominated for the commissioner position by the Obama Administration on March 3.
A former visiting lecturer at Berkeley Law, Shelton has been a human rights consultant to the United Nations and Council of Europe and has assisted major health and environmental organizations. A Vice President of the American Society of International Law, she sits on the board of several nongovernmental organizations concerned with human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples.