Thirty-sixth session of ECLAC

Miguel Ruiz Cabañas is a Mexican diplomat and has been Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2015.

He is a career diplomat, having entered the Mexican Foreign Service in 1979. He was responsible for drug trafficking affairs at the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations from 1988 to 1989, having been responsible for social and humanitarian affairs from 1981 to 1986. After this, he was Director of the General Directorate for the United Nations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1989-1991), Coordinator of Advisers to the Undersecretary for Europe, Asia and Africa at the Ministry (1991-1992) and Coordinator of Advisers to the Undersecretary for the Americas (1992-1993).

He was also Head of Migration and Border Affairs at the Mexican Embassy in the United States from 1993 to 1995, Special Coordinator for Drug Trafficking Affairs from 1995 to 1999 and Director General for North America from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2004 he acted as Permanent Representative of Mexico to the Organization of American States (OAS). He was then appointed as Mexican Ambassador to Japan and, in 2011, as Mexican Ambassador to Italy and Permanent Representative of Mexico to the international organizations based in Rome.

In the academic sphere, he has been a Professor of International Relations and Foreign Policy at different academic centres in Mexico, including the Ibero-American University, the University of the Americas, the National Defence College and the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM). He has lectured at different universities in Argentina, Japan, Spain and the United States. He has also published a number of articles in specialist journals produced by universities and research centres in Mexico and the United States on relations between Mexico and the United States, Mexico’s participation in the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations, the problem of drug trafficking, and security in the American hemisphere.

He graduated in International Relations from the College of Mexico and holds a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University in New York.