Carlos Bernal

Professor Carlos Bernal is the Tulane Law David Boies Distinguished Chair in Law, appointed in 2026.  Bernal, a former Justice of Colombia’s Constitutional Court (2017–2020), currently serves as a Commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the IACHR’s Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the 2022–2025 term. His selection to the regional human-rights body followed decades of scholarship and service in Latin America, Europe, Australia, and the United States. 

In addition, Professor Bernal has held visiting professorships at the Faculties of Law of the Universities of Paris I (Sorbonne) and Paris X (Nanterre), the University of Copenhagen, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of León (Spain). He has also been a Senior Research Fellow at Yale Law School, King’s College London School of Law, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg).

Professor Bernal specializes in the interpretation of constitutional rights and comparative constitutional change. His research also focuses on jurisprudence—particularly the intersection of social ontology and legal theory—as well as the philosophical foundations of tort law. His work has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals and in books and edited collections in English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Russian.

He earned his LL.B. in 1996 from the University Externado of Colombia (Bogotá), an S.J.D. in 2001 from the University of Salamanca (Spain), and an M.A. (2008) and Ph.D. (2011) in Philosophy from the University of Florida (U.S.A.).

The Colombian Government has recognized Professor Bernal with both the Order of Boyacá and the José María Córdova Medal.