FAU has awarded the 2026 Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award to Venezuelan sociologist and human rights activist Ligia Bolívar in recognition of her outstanding global contributions to the advancement of human rights. In particular, the award honours her work on behalf of migrants and refugees, as well as her efforts to document human rights violations in Venezuela.
About the recipient Ligia Bolívar
Ligia Bolívar is a research fellow at the Centre for Human Rights at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in exile in Colombia. She previously served as Director of the UCAB Centre for Human Rights and as Amnesty International’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, she led a project on civil society participation within the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s judicial reform initiative. Over the course of her career, she has also worked as a consultant for several organizations, including the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights. She is the founder of the Venezuelan Program for Education and Action in Human Rights (PROVEA), a prominent non-governmental organization in the region. In recent years, she has spoken out forcefully against authoritarian tendencies in both the current Maduro government in Venezuela and the Trump administration in the United States.
Rudolf Benario ca. 1930, aged 22. Image: [Michael Schneeberger], CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
About the Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award 2026
In reaching its decision, the selection panel considered the nominee’s contributions to both academic and activist human rights work. It also took into account the severity of the pressures, precarious conditions, risks, and threats faced by the nominees, as well as whether they had previously received awards or other forms of support. Finally, the panel sought to highlight a particularly urgent global human rights situation.
This year’s award—the third to be presented—also marks the renaming of the award in honour of Dr Rudolf Benario, an FAU doctoral graduate who opposed complicity with the Nazi regime and was murdered in Dachau in 1933.
A ceremony to commemorate Rudolf Benario and to celebrate Ligia Bolívar will be announced in due course.
Header Image: [Daniel Cima], Lizenz: CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
FAU has awarded the 2026 Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award to Venezuelan sociologist and human rights activist Ligia Bolívar in recognition of her outstanding global contributions to the advancement of human rights. In particular, the award honours her work on behalf of migrants and refugees, as well as her efforts to document human rights violations in Venezuela.
About the recipient Ligia Bolívar
Ligia Bolívar is a research fellow at the Centre for Human Rights at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in exile in Colombia. She previously served as Director of the UCAB Centre for Human Rights and as Amnesty International’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, she led a project on civil society participation within the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s judicial reform initiative. Over the course of her career, she has also worked as a consultant for several organizations, including the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights. She is the founder of the Venezuelan Program for Education and Action in Human Rights (PROVEA), a prominent non-governmental organization in the region. In recent years, she has spoken out forcefully against authoritarian tendencies in both the current Maduro government in Venezuela and the Trump administration in the United States.
About the Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award 2026
In reaching its decision, the selection panel considered the nominee’s contributions to both academic and activist human rights work. It also took into account the severity of the pressures, precarious conditions, risks, and threats faced by the nominees, as well as whether they had previously received awards or other forms of support. Finally, the panel sought to highlight a particularly urgent global human rights situation.
This year’s award—the third to be presented—also marks the renaming of the award in honour of Dr Rudolf Benario, an FAU doctoral graduate who opposed complicity with the Nazi regime and was murdered in Dachau in 1933.
A ceremony to commemorate Rudolf Benario and to celebrate Ligia Bolívar will be announced in due course.
Header Image: [Daniel Cima], Lizenz: CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.