New Permanent Representative of Guatemala Presents Credentials to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva
José Francisco Calí Tzay, the new Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented his credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.
From 2020 to 2024, Mr. Calí Tzay served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. Also since 2020, he has been Associate Director of the International Human Rights Advocacy Clinic and the Human Rights Clinic of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Programme at the University of Arizona, United States.
Mr. Calí Tzay served as Guatemala’s Ambassador to Germany from 2016 to 2020, concurrently serving as non-resident Ambassador to Poland and Ukraine. He was also the Director of the Programme for the Implementation of the Human Rights Directorate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala from 2008 to 2013.
Mr. Calí Tzay was a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for 16 years from 2004 to 2020, including as the Committee’s Chair from 2014 to 2015 and as Vice-Chair from 2016 to 2019.
Additionally, he has held other posts in Guatemala, including President of the National Reparation Programme for Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict from 2003 to 2004, and Presidential Commissioner against Discrimination and Racism against Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala from 2001 to 2004.
Mr. Calí Tzay has undertaken studies in comparative and indigenous peoples law at the University of Oklahoma, United States (2013) and in legal and social sciences at Mariano Gålvez University, Guatemala (2005-2011). He obtained a bachelor’s degree in sciences and letters in 2004.
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CR24.041E