Paulo Pinheiro is the chairman of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. He was one of seven members of the Brazilian Truth Commission created in 2012 to examine human rights violations during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. He is also visiting adjunct professor of international relations at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Previously, he served as commissioner and rapporteur on children at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States from 2003 to 2010, and as the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar from 2000 to 2008. He was the Brazilian federal secretary of state for human rights from 2001 to 2002. He was the UN special rapporteur for Burundi from 1995 to 1999.