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PhD Researcher Salvador Leyva Morelos Zaragoza has been selected as a 2026 Summer Legal Fellow with the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR).

The University Network for Human Rights is an international network that trains students in human rights fact-finding, documentation, research, and advocacy, and places them directly into active human rights initiatives. The Summer Fellowship takes place over eight to ten weeks in Lisbon, Portugal, where fellows work under the supervision of experienced attorneys and advocates on legal research, writing, advocacy, and project support for UNHR’s ongoing human rights work.

As part of the fellowship, fellows may participate in one or more of UNHR’s current projects, which address urgent human rights issues around the world. These include: 

• Ethnic Cleansing and Erasure in Nagorno-Karabakh – documenting rights abuses related to the forced displacement of Armenian communities and contributing to legal submissions and evidence databases. 

• Environmental Justice in Panama – supporting submissions to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concerning serious rights violations linked to large-scale infrastructure projects affecting Indigenous and local communities. 

• Disappearances in Mexico – analysing legal mechanisms and reforms linked to the crisis of enforced disappearances and efforts to establish a national commission to address them. 

• Massacres in Bolivia (Black November) – assisting in the development of legal strategies related to state violence against Indigenous protestors following the 2019 coup d’état. 

These project areas reflect a range of substantive human rights issues, including atrocity documentation, environmental and Indigenous rights, truth and accountability mechanisms, and legal advocacy before regional and international bodies.

The fellowship is closely aligned with Salvador’s own doctoral research on enforced disappearances, particularly in relation to the role of international courts and UN mechanisms in defining State duties, addressing compliance with international decisions, and strengthening accountability for serious human rights violations. truth and accountability mechanisms, and legal advocacy before regional and international bodies.