Paulo Pinheiro

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro is a former Brazilian government minister with a human rights portfolio, and was coordinator and commissioner of the 2012-14 National Truth Commission. He has also been the Chair of the UN independent international Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic since it was first established in 2011,

Since 1995 he has served in a variety of other capacities for the United Nations and as UN Secretary-General´s Independent Expert, he published the World Report on Violence against Chidren in 2006 . From 2003 to 2011 at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, OAS, he was commissioner and rapporteur on children.

He is research associate at the Center for the Study of Violence, and Professor of Political Science (retired) at the University of São Paulo, USP, and Brazil. Pinheiro has been Adjunct Professor of international relations at the Watson Institute of International Studies, Brown University, from 2007 to 2015. He has also taught at Columbia University, Notre Dame University, Oxford, Maison des Sciences de l´Homme and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris.

He has published many articles, essays and books on social history, democracy, violence, and human rights.

Pinheiro is married to Ana Luiza A. Pinheiro and they have three children, Daniela, André, and Marina. He lives between São Paulo and Geneva.