Arturo J. Carrillo

Arturo J. Carrillo is Professor of Law, Director of the Civil and Human Rights Law Clinic, and Co-Director of the Global Internet Freedom & Human Rights Project at the George Washington University Law School. He is also the Human Rights Lead at Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV), a non-profit civil society organization, where he has pioneered research, litigation and advocacy strategies aimed at promoting firearms industry accountability for its role in enabling endemic firearm violence in the United States and abroad. In 2024, he was named to the Lancet Commission on Global Firearm Violence and Health.

Professor Carrillo’s expertise is in public international law, specializing in human rights and humanitarian law. His professional activities focus on research and advocacy relating to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and human rights, especially Internet freedom; and advancing the practical application of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGP) to companies that manufacture, distribute and sell firearms for civilian use, as well as to those in the ICT sector. As part of his clinical practice, Professor Carrillo litigates civil rights cases in U.S. courts and before international human rights tribunals.

Prior to joining the GW Law faculty, Professor Carrillo served as the acting director of the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, where he was also Lecturer in Law and the Henkin Senior Fellow with Columbia’s Human Rights Institute. Before entering the academy in 2000, he worked as a legal advisor in the Human Rights Division of the United Nations Observer Mission to El Salvador (ONUSAL), as well as for non-governmental organizations in his native Colombia. Professor Carrillo is the author of numerous publications in English and Spanish (see Scholarly Work tab). He received a BA from Princeton University, a JD from the George Washington University, and an LLM from Columbia University.

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