Edison Lanza

Uruguay | Non-Resident Senior Fellow,

Secretary for International Relations and Institutional Affairs, Canelones Department (Uruguay)

Edison Lanza is a non-resident senior fellow with the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. He is currently the Secretary for International Relations and Institutional Affairs for the regional government of Canelones Department (Uruguay) and a professor of journalism at the University of the Republic of Uruguay. Lanza served previously as Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2014-2020). A lawyer and journalist, he has litigated freedom of expression cases at the national and regional levels, and served as a journalist for several media outlets.

Lanza has co-founded and presided the Center for Archives and Access to Public Information (CAInfo), co-founded the Media and Society Group, has been a member of the Committee on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in the Regional Alliance for Freedom of Expression and Information, and of the Working Group on the Inter-American System of Human Rights of the OAS IFEX-ALC alliance in defense of freedom of expression.

An Uruguayan lawyer, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of the Republic (Uruguay) in 1997. He pursued graduate studies on freedom of speech and criminal law at the same university and is a PhD candidate in the regulatory process of audiovisual media in Latin America at the University of Buenos Aires.