Gretel Mejía Bonifazi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre. She is a Guatemalan lawyer specialized in human rights. She holds an MA in Human Rights from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (2017) and a law degree from San Carlos University in Guatemala (2015). Before joining the Human Rights Centre, she worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, where she focused on human rights and corruption in Latin America. Previously, she worked on a wide range of transitional justice, human rights and international criminal law issues at various organizations, such as the Syrian Archive, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the Nuremberg Human Rights Center (NMRZ).
She defended her doctoral thesis “The struggle continues : socio-legal analysis of Maya Ixil victims-survivors’ trajectories of participation in transitional justice in Guatemala” successfully on the 4th of July 2024.
08/2024 – ongoing: Postdoctoral researcher, Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University, Belgium
09/2019 – 07/2024: PhD research fellow, Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University,Belgium
09/2018 – 01/2019: Research Assistant, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg/Berlin, Germany
01/2018 – 04/2018: Legal trainee, International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Nuremberg, Germany
04/2017 – 09/2017: Legal Fellow, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights – ECCHR-
(Recipient of the Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung scholarship), Berlin, Germany
09/2016 – 11/2016: Research Intern, Nuremberg Human Rights Center, Nuremberg, Germany
11/2013 – 06/2015: Legal consultant, Independent law practice, Guatemala City, Guatemala
05/2012 – 11/2012: Law Clerk, Family Court of the Municipality of Mixco, Guatemala
10/2011 – 04/2012: Legal intern, Guatemalan Chamber of Industry Dispute Resolution Centre, Guatemala City, Guatemala
01/2011 – 09/2011: Legal Intern, National Council of Protected Areas, Guatemala City, Guatemala
University Degrees
Ghent University, Belgium: Doctor of laws, 2019-2024
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany: Master of Arts Human Rights, 2015- 2017
San Carlos University Faculty of Law, Guatemala City, Guatemala: Bachelor of Law and Social Sciences, 2008-2015
Summer Schools/Additional training
United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland: Seminar: “Internet Governance for human, social and economic development”, 12/2014
Geneva University and World Intellectual Property Organization, Switzerland: Summer School on Intellectual Property, June – July 2013
