Miloon Kothari, former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing and currently Visiting Scholar at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, was elected President of UPR Info.

Mr. Kothari is a leading voice at national, regional and international forums on human rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights. He served (from 2000-2008) as the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights Council. During his tenure as Special Rapporteur Mr. Kothari led the process that resulted in the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development based Evictions and Displacement – the current global operational human rights standard on the practice of forced evictions. An architect by training, Mr. Kothari has been particularly active, in recent years, on issues such as Women’s rights to land, inheritance, property, housing and globalization, trade liberalization and their impacts on the right to adequate housing and other related rights and the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Since 2009, Mr. Kothari has contributed significantly, as founding member and convener to the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR), an NGO based in India and particularly active on the UPR.

We are very pleased and honoured that Mr. Kothari accepted to become the second President of UPR Info. He will bring his passion, knowledge and multiple experiences to the organisation and will contribute greatly to its future developments.

Mr. Kothari replaces Bertrand Ramcharan, former Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, who served as President of UPR Info from 2011 to 2014.

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