Héctor Fix-Zamudio

[1] Born in the downtown quarter of Mexico City,[2] Fix-Zamudio studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1956 and his doctorate (magna cum laude) in 1972.

In 1964 he accepted a full-time research position at the UNAM's Legal Research Institute (Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas), then known as the Institute of Comparative Law (Instituto de Derecho Comparado).

He was elected to serve as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from 1987 to 1997, including two terms as its president.

The awards he won included the National Prize for History, Social Science and Philosophy, the National Jurisprudence Prize, awarded in 1994 by the Mexican Bar Association (1994), and the Senate's Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honour in 2002.

[1] Fix-Zamudio published 20 books and 250 articles on legal topics, including amparo, constitutional law and human rights.