Marcos A. Orellana (LL.M., S.J.D.) is adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches on the law on human rights and the environment. Dr. Orellana is also the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights.  His research interests include the role of global interests in shaping and operationalizing global obligations, and the interface between human rights and the planetary environmental crisis.

His practice as legal advisor has included work with United Nations agencies, governments and non-governmental organizations. His practice as climate negotiator has included work representing the eight-nation Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) in the negotiations of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the modalities of its facilitation and compliance mechanism.  He also served as senior legal advisor to the Presidency of the 25th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Professor Orellana has appeared before several international courts and tribunals, including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes and the World Trade Organization.

Professor Orellana has extensive experience working with civil society around the world on issues concerning global environmental justice. He was the inaugural director of the Environment and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. Previously he directed the trade and the human rights programs at the Center for International Environmental Law, and he co-chaired the UN Environment Program’s civil society forum.

At the Washington College of Law, Professor Orellana has offered several international legal courses, including: Law of the Sea, Law of International Organizations, International Investment Law, International Trade and the Environment, and International Law.  Professor Orellana has also lectured in prominent universities around the world, including Melbourne, Pretoria, Geneva, George Washington and Guadalajara. He was a fellow at the University of Cambridge, visiting scholar with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC, and instructor professor of international law at the Universidad de Talca, Chile.