García Muñoz has a distinguished record of research, education, and advocacy on the rights of women, LGBTQ people, Afro descendent and indigenous communities, as well as extensive human rights experience in the European, Inter-American and United Nations systems. In 2017, she was elected as the first ever Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (REDESCA), a position she held for six years. During those years, she was also part of the Working Group of the Protocol of San Salvador of the Organization of American States, which she chaired between 2021 and 2023. Her creative and energetic advocacy during that inaugural tenure put these rights and issues, such as business and human rights and the climate emergency, at the center of the agenda of the American States and the Inter-American System to advance justice and equality for the most vulnerable and historically marginalized people throughout the Americas.

Prior to her appointment as Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCER), García Muñoz led the South America regional office of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR), an international academic institution established jointly by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Republic of Costa Rica. Based in Montevideo, Uruguay, García Muñoz managed numerous human rights education and promotion projects in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Previously, as coordinator of IIHR’s CEDAW-Argentina project, García Muñoz’s efforts were key to securing Argentina’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and in broadly promoting women’s rights in the country.

As the 2023-2024 Robert F. Drinan Chair at the Human Rights Institute, García Muñoz taught a course focused on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights with a special focus on climate emergency and business and human rights, served as a mentor to students, and participated in the Human Rights Institute’s programming.

Garcia Muñoz’s Drinan Lecture, “The Age of Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights,” amplified the importance of economic, social, cultural, and environmental (ESCE) rights, addressed common myths, and reiterated the interdependence and indivisibility of these rights with civil and political rights. The lecture opened with a moving introduction from Margarette May Macaulay, the former Commissioner and President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, who described García Muñoz as her “sister in solidarity” and a champion of ESCE rights globally.

Watch the 2023-2024 Drinan Lecture here: