Welcoming CLACS Cogut Visiting Professor Camilo Umaña

January 13, 2025

CLACS extends a warm welcome to CLACS Cogut Visiting Professor Camilo Umaña. This Spring, Dr.Umaña will be teaching LACA 1504Q: The War On Drugs From the Latin American Perspective: Current Issues and Possible Alternatives. 

Dr. Camilo Umaña is a legal scholar from Colombia and a former Deputy Minister of Justice and Law, where he led drug policy, the criminal justice system, and transitional justice programs. With expertise in human rights, criminology, and restorative practices, Dr. Umaña played an active role in Colombia's 2016 peace and reconciliation process. He supported Colombia’s Truth Commission by leading the research on access to justice and impunity in the internal armed conflict for the final report. He has also assisted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on transitional justice for the emergence of various institutions derived from the Peace Agreement with the FARC guerrilla group.  

Additionally, he has worked for the National Ombudsman as an expert on restorative justice and several human rights organizations in Colombia, Mexico, and the US, litigating and conducting research to provide human rights NGOs with tools to strengthen their work. He has been a constitutional law professor and co-directed the human rights master’s program at Externado University in Bogotá.

Professor Umaña holds a Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. in Sociology of Law from the University of the Basque Country. His research and publications focus on impunity, victims' rights, and peacebuilding, including several works on Colombia's transitional justice framework.