Pedro Abramovay

Guest Author

Pedro Abramovay (X) is Vice President of Programs at the Open Society Foundations. Before his tenure at Open Society, Abramovay held a series of key posts within Brazil’s Ministry of Justice: He was a special adviser to the Minister of Justice from 2004 to 2006, the ministry’s Secretary for Legislative Affairs from 2007 to 2010, and Secretary of Justice from 2010 to 2011. Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Abramovay helped draft significant pieces of legislation and led a campaign that resulted in the removal of an estimated half-million guns from circulation. He worked on reform of Brazil’s penitentiary system and created a blog-led drafting process for legislation on internet freedom. Abramovay was also a campaign director for Avaaz, leading campaigns against corruption and for the promotion of human rights in Latin America and was a professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas School of Law in Rio de Janeiro. Abramovay studied law at the University of São Paulo Law School and received an MA in constitutional law from the University of Brasília and a PhD in political science from the University of Rio de Janeiro.