Gina Romero, national of Colombia, was appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association and took up her functions in April 2024.
Prior to her appointment, Ms. Romero led several initiatives for the promotion and defense of democracy and rule of law. She is one of the founders and served for nearly 10 years as Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy(Redlad). In this position, she also served as Secretariat of the Civil Society Pillar of the Community of Democracies. In these capacities, she has had direct relation with multiple stakeholders (including governments, civil society, academia and private sector representatives) in 19 countries in the American Continent, and at least 35 in Europe, Africa and Asia.
In her expert capacity, Ms. Romero was involved in several actions at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, including the request of public hearings on specific regional trends and human rights violations, the submission of inputs collectively built for reporting backslides in rights protections in specific countries and specific rights. Also, she coordinated actions to bring voices and inputs of Latin American social actors (including CSO, social movements and indigenous and afro descendant communities) to several UN mechanisms and mandate holders. Besides, Ms. Romero has been an advocate for the increase and improvement of citizen participation and engagement in intergovernmental organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS).
In the past 15 years Ms. Romero has overseen the presentation of 9 reports for the Universal Periodic Review, 450 reports on violations of civic space associated rights, a Latin American report on police repression during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and over 100 alerts on civic space shrinking and democracy backsliding in LAC and other regions.
Ms. Romero has been an international consultant in governance issues including anticorruption, access to information, and youth participation. Also, she has been guest professor at Columbia University and Externado University.
Ms. Romero has a degree in Government and International Relations from Externado University in Colombia, and a Masters Diploma in Analysis of contemporary political, economic and international affairs from the Institut des Hautes Études d’Amérique Latine -IHEAL (Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3) and Externado University.