Carlos Ayala Corao
Mr. Carlos Ayala Corao, a Venezuelan citizen, was a Commissioner of the IACHR from January 1, 1996, to December 31, 1999. He was Chair of the Commission in 1998, First Vice-Chair in 1997, and Second Vice-Chair in 1996. In March 1996, during the Commissions 91st period of sessions, Carlos Ayala Corao was named Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, taking on a central role in the preparation of, consultations on, and final approval of the Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the IACHR presented to the OAS General Assembly in 1997. He also oversaw the preparation of the report entitled The Human Rights Situation of the Indigenous People in the Americas, published in October 2000. In July 1996, he participated in the IACHR's onsite visit to Mexico, as well as in onsite visits to Guatemala, Colombia, United States of America, Canada, Paraguay, and Peru.
Carlos Ayala Corao obtained his law degree with honors and his doctoral studies in law at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB) in Venezuela, and holds a master's degree in government from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at UCAB and the Central University of Venezuela (UCV); he also heads the Constitutional Law Department and the Department of Public Law at UCAB and teaches in the Human Rights Postgraduate Program at UCV. He regularly teaches courses at the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, and in 1999 he taught courses in human rights at the University of Georgetown and American University. Since 2003, he has also offered courses and conferences in human rights and constitutional law in the postgraduate programs of several universities, including Mexico's Ibero-American and Pan American universities; the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), the Washington College of Law (United States), the University of Talca (Chile), and the Blas Pascal University of Córdoba (Argentina).
He was President of the Andean Commission of Jurists between 2003 and 2009. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ibero-American Institute of Constitutional Law and President of its Venezuela Chapter; President of the Venezuelan Association of Constitutional Law (1995-1998) and Honorary Chairman since 1998; a corresponding member of the Institute of Research on the New State at the University of Belgrano (Argentina); a member of the Associations of Constitutional Law of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru; a member of the International Commission designated by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights for the process of selection and appointment of Ecuador's Supreme Court of Justice (2005); and a United Nations consultant for the election process for the Supreme Court of Justice of Guatemala (2009). Carlos Ayala is the author of various books and articles published on human rights and constitutional law issues, and he has served as an adviser to UNESCO's human rights program.