GENEVA, 1 September 2021 – The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Nazhat S. Khan of Fiji, announced today the appointment of Patricia Tappatá Valdez of Argentina to serve as a member of the Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Ms. Tappatá Valdez joins Marta Valiñas of Portugal, Chairperson of the Mission, and Francisco Cox Vial of Chile, whose appointments were announced in December 2019. She replaces Paul Seils of the United Kingdom, who stepped down as a member of the three-person body earlier this year.
With a distinguished career in human rights, justice and democratic reform, Ms. Tappatá Valdez brings to the Mission a wealth of knowledge of human rights in Latin America, with a particular focus on accountability and advocacy.
With resolution 42/25 in 2019, the Human Rights Council decided to establish the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela to assess alleged human rights violations committed since 2014.
In October 2020, the Council further decided to extend the mandate of the Mission for two years. It requested the Mission to present oral updates on its work during interactive dialogues at the Council’s 46th session (22 February 2021 to 24 March 2021) and 49th session (February-March 2022). The Commission is scheduled to present written reports on its findings to the Council during interactive dialogues at its 48th session (13 September 2021 to 8 October 2021) and 51st session (June-July 2022).
Biography
Ms. Patricia Tappatá Valdez is a human rights advocate who was latterly a member of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Government of Bolivia. Before this she was the Director of the International Centre for the Promotion of Human Rights based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 1992 to 1993, she was the Director of the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador and headed the Human Rights Department of the National Conference of Bishops of Peru. Since 2010, she has also been a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Buenos Aires. Furthermore, she is one of the founding members of the International Sites of Conscience and currently serves on its Advisory Committee and on the board of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales in Argentina. She is also a member of the Management Council of Memorial Park and Monuments to the Victims of State Terrorism and served on the board of trustees of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa. She holds a degree from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba and completed her postgraduate studies at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciences Sociales in Buenos Aires.