Julian Huertas is a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law under the supervision of Professors Karen Knop and David Dyzenhaus, and the guidance of committee members Profs. Richard Stacey and Galit A. Sarfaty.
He is interested in rethinking the unexplored possibilities offered by human rights law and politics to combat autocratic populism and enhance liberal democracy and the rule of law. His doctoral research examines the political role of human rights law and institutions in contexts of democratic erosion, as well as the challenges posed by new illiberal conceptions of international human rights law. The first part of the investigation studies how, while international human rights courts are typically focused on individuals and their concrete circumstances, they can also serve an essential function in confronting autocratic regimes. The second part focuses on understanding the nature of the contestation to human rights institutions from the viewpoint of frameworks that overcome simplistic explanations of the populist threat. In particular, it explores whether an ambiguously legal but authoritarian interpretation of human rights can seriously compete with the classical understanding of the same concept. The research engages with these questions as embodied in the confrontation between the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela. Specifically, it assesses a set of decisions delivered by the Inter-American Court against Venezuela that were rejected and contested by the Supreme Tribunal during the first two decades of this century.
Julian has presented his work at the New Voices in International Law panel organized by the American Society of International Law (ASIL); the Global Scholars Academy held by the Harvard Law School Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP); Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Conference; the Emerging Voices panel during the International Law Weekend of the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA); Sciences Po’s Intensive Doctoral Week; the Symposium International Law without International Courts, organized by ASIL’s International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group; and iCourt’s Ph.D. Summer School.
He holds an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; an LL.M. in International Law from Universidad de La Sabana (Colombia); and received a Law degree (equivalent to an LL.B.) from Universidad del Rosario (Colombia). He has been assistant professor of international law, now on leave, at Universidad de La Sabana. He has also been a coach of La Sabana’s teams that participate in moot courts like the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law.
