Ligia Bolivar is currently an Adjunct Researcher at the UCAB’s Center for Human Rights, responsible for the area of migrant rights.

Ligia was previously the Director of the Centre for Human Rights at the Andres Bello Catholic University since 1999, where she also taught undergraduate and graduate programs in the area of human rights. She studied Sociology at Andres Bello Catholic University (Caracas) and completed her postgraduate studies in Human Rights at Universidad Central de Venezuela.

In 1982, she obtained a grant from the International Human Rights Internship Program which allowed her to train as an intern with the International League for Human Rights in New York. In 1987 – 1988 she worked as Regional Liaison Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal at Amnesty International, International Secretariat in London.

She is the founder of the Venezuelan Program for Education – Action on Human Rights (Provea) and co-founder of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL, Washington DC) and the International Council on Human Rights Policy (London – Geneva).

In the public sector she worked in the Ministry of Justice and was called to assume as Manager for Participation of Civil Society in the Judicial Reform Project of the Supreme Court in Venezuela.

Ligia’s voluntary activity includes numerous training workshops for human rights activists in various countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, USA, the Philippines and Egypt. She also served as a Visiting Professor of Human Rights in universities across Latin America and Europe.