Maria is a trilingual barrister and solicitor with the Law Society of Ontario, Canada, as well as a Colombian lawyer. She is recognized internationally for her extensive humanitarian and consultancy field experience with foreign governments, the private sector and the International Committee of the Red Cross, having worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Canada. Maria was awarded the Biodiversity Law and Governance Global Leadership award by the CISDL in Montreal in 2022 for her commitment to conflict resolution, human rights, and humanitarian work in over 30 countries. She is the founding president of the International Law Association Colombian Branch, and was a member of the ILA Committee on International Environmental Law and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources.

Maria is versatile at connecting procedural and substantive local laws and public international law in business, environmental and human rights scenarios. She has worked in civil litigation with a Toronto law firm, with a multinational corporation, with insurance and reinsurance brokers, with the Colombian oil company Ecopetrol, with the government of Colombia on arbitration treaties and transparency in investment disputes. Added to her international humanitarian work for the protection of victims of armed conflict with the ICRC, Maria advised South African local communities pro-bono in an environmental dispute, advised the government of Colombia on the rights of victims of conflict and was a clerk on fundamental rights’ cases for a justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, Dr. Arango Mejia.

In addition to her dual legal background in civil and common law, Maria has expert knowledge in international law, holding LLM degrees in private and public international law from the London School of Economics and McGill university, as well as a postgraduate international law degree from Pantheon-Assas in Paris.

Maria is a law graduate of Rosario university in Colombia and a recipient of the Principal’s Graduate Fellowship award from McGill University in Canada.