José Miguel Vivanco is a Partner at DGA Group and is based in Washington, DC. He has more than three decades of experience in investigations, litigation strategy and complex dispute resolution. He advises global business leaders and boards of directors on a broad range of issues encompassing labor practices and relations, human rights, supply chain engagement, risk management and business intelligence.

Previously, Mr. Vivanco served as the Americas Director of Human Rights Watch, where he led negotiations at the highest levels; intermediated and directly engaged with heads of state, parliaments, business leaders, and social and community advocates; and led investigations and advocacy missions on policies and practices affecting human rights.

Mr. Vivanco has been widely published in numerous print media, including: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Foreign Policy, El País and other influential Spanish language media, including: La Nación, El Tiempo, Reforma, O Globo, El Comercio, El Mercurio. He has testified before the US Congress, the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), European Parliament, and governmental bodies in several Latin American and Caribbean countries. He has also lectured at many of the world’s leading institutions including numerous U.N. agencies, World Bank, the Organization of American States (OAS), Ford Foundation; academic institutions including Yale University, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, University of Berkeley, Columbia Law School, Washington College of Law, Casa de America/Madrid, University of Heidelberg, and Oxford University.

Prior to Human Rights Watch, Mr. Vivanco was the founder and executive director Center for Justice and International Law, which provided free legal representation, including access to international human rights protection in the Inter-American system. He was also an attorney and executive secretariat at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, OAS, where he successfully represented the Commission in the first litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, obtaining landmark judgment on forced disappearances as a ‘crime against humanity’.