Laura Gil is a Colombian-Uruguayan internationalist with an expertise in human rights and a fascination for all things United Nations, especially as they relate to the UN’s involvement in Colombia. She has worked for the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the International Organization for Migration and, in Colombia, the Congressional Commission on International Relations, the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as for international and domestic non-governmental organizations.

She dedicated the past decade of her career as a human rights advisor to the adoption and implementation of the Law on Reparations for Victims and Land Restitution, a landmark that contributed to the opening of peace talks with the Farc.

She writes for the op-ed page of El Tiempo, Colombia’s largest newspaper, on issues relating to foreign policy and international affairs and peace and human rights. She won a national journalism award for her columns on the Nicaragua – Colombia border and was a Stanford University’s Draper Hills Fellow. She also directed Hashtag International, a TV program dedicated to international analysis.

Fun-fact: Laura did the Great Book Program at St John’s College. That is such a unique program that, over the years, she has oftentimes felt stranger than a checkered dog… a very well-read checkered dog, though.