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Michael Camilleri served as the Director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue from May 2017 until April 2021. He serves as acting Assistant Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. He was previously a Senior Advisor to Administrator Samantha Power and led the Agency’s Democracy Delivers Initiative and its Northern Triangle Task Force.
An international lawyer and former diplomat, he served in the Obama administration from 2012 to 2017 as the Western Hemisphere adviser on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as Director for Andean Affairs at the National Security Council.
Prior to joining the US government, Michael was a human rights specialist at the Organization of American States and a senior staff attorney at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). He also worked with a coalition of civil society organizations in Guatemala and at a large international law firm.
Camilleri’s commentary and analysis on legal and policy issues in the Americas have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Americas Quarterly, BBC, Fox News, Univision, NTN24, and CNN en Español. Michael is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and he has been an adjunct professor of law and international affairs at the George Washington University, American University, and the University of Baltimore. He holds a B.A. in history from the University of Notre Dame and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
