Fellow
Thalia Viveros Uehara is an HGHI–Salata Burke Climate and Health Fellow at Harvard University, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. She previously held a postdoctoral position at Tilburg University.
Her research spans public international law, human rights, and environmental and climate change law, with a focus on international adjudication, health, and inequality. Combining doctrinal and socio-legal approaches, she examines how courts and legal institutions make climate-related harms legally cognisable and shape responsibility, protection, and remedies. Her work focuses particularly on the Inter-American Human Rights System, climate litigation, and populations experiencing structural disadvantage.
Her scholarship has appeared in Transnational Legal Theory, Health and Human Rights, the Journal of Human Rights Practice, Revista Direito GV, and World Comparative Law, as well as in leading edited volumes. She is also a reporter and commentator for Oxford Reports on International Law, including on the Inter-American Court’s Climate Emergency Advisory Opinion and La Oroya v. Peru.
She holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Boston, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an LL.B. from the University of Veracruz. Earlier in her career, she served as a parliamentary adviser to the Mexican Senate and held senior positions at Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission.
Recent publications:
“Dialogical Lawyering for Climate Justice: A Proposal from Latin America,” with Cecilia Vieira de Melo, Macarena Martinic and María Ximena González-Serrano, Transnational Legal Theory 17(1) (2026), 91–125. Drawing on Latin American experiences, the article proposes dialogical lawyering as a way of rethinking legal practice in climate justice beyond litigation and the courtroom.
https://doi.org/10.1080/20414005.2026.2642524
“Climate Emergency and Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: Challenges and Perspectives,” with René Urueña, Edward Pérez and Ignacio G. Perotti Pinciroli, Transnational Legal Theory 17(1) (2026), 1–23. The editorial asks what the climate emergency means for transformative constitutionalism in Latin America, bringing together debates on rights, institutions and structural change.
https://doi.org/10.1080/20414005.2026.2656066
“The Inter-American Human Rights System and Climate Litigation,” with Maria Antonia Tigre, in Climate Change before International Courts: A Comparative Study (Routledge, 2026). The chapter traces how the Inter-American human rights system has shaped climate litigation and considers its growing role in connecting climate harm with states’ human rights obligations.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003540977-4
Climate Emergency and Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-32/25,” Reporter and Commentator, Oxford Reports on International Law: International Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2026). A report and legal commentary on the Inter-American Court’s landmark climate advisory opinion and its implications for the evolving relationship between human rights and climate law.
https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-ihrl/4568iachr25.case.1/law-ihrl-4568iachr25
“Together for Health: How the Inter-American Court Brings Science and Knowledge to the Climate Fight,” Bill of Health, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School (7 April 2026). The piece explores a less discussed dimension of the Court’s climate advisory opinion: how science, health evidence and diverse knowledge systems can inform more inclusive responses to climate harm. https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2026/04/07/together-for-health-how-the-inter-american-court-brings-science-and-knowledge-to-the-climate-fight/
Website:
https://www.mpil.de/en/pub/institute/personnel/academic-staff/viveros-uehara-thalia.cfm