Christopher Hernandez-Roy

Christopher Hernandez-Roy is the deputy director and senior fellow of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Throughout his more than 25-year career, Mr. Hernandez-Roy has worked extensively to advance democratic governance, prevent and resolve conflict, strengthen the rule of law, respect human rights, ensure citizen security, and promote integral development across Latin America and the Caribbean. He has held various senior leadership positions at the Organization of American States (OAS), having served as a senior political adviser to two secretaries general. In this capacity, he most recently documented the abuses of authoritarian regimes in Venezuela and Cuba and co-led the organization’s efforts to hold the Venezuelan regime accountable for possible crimes against humanity. He was previously the director of two OAS departments focused on advancing and defending democracy and building the hemispheric security agenda. He managed several donor-funded projects focused on security sector reform across the Americas, oversaw the organization’s political analysis system, supervised the Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia, and negotiated the establishment of the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras. He also coordinated the Fund for Peace and was intimately involved in the peaceful resolution of border disputes between Honduras and Nicaragua, Belize and Guatemala, and Honduras and El Salvador. More recently, Mr. Hernandez-Roy served as a citizen security and international development consultant for Creative Associates International. He also worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa, Canada, early in his career. He is a native English speaker and is fluent in Spanish and French. He holds a BA honors degree in history from Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) and an MPhil degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge, England.