Chile’s ambassador to the United States since June 21, 2010, Arturo Fermandois Vöhringer is an attorney, professor and lover of music who plays in a rock band.

 

Born on October 14, 1962, in Santiago, Fermandois graduated in 1987 with a law degree from Catholic University of Chile, where he received the Monsignor Carlos Casanueva Award for outstanding academic achievement and student leadership.

 

His early career was as a lawyer in the legal division of Banco del Estado de Chile from 1987-1996, where he also was secretary of the board. During this time, he received a Fulbright scholarship in 1993 that allowed him to study at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He graduated with an MA in 1994.

 

After returning home, Fermandois joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement negotiating team, his first work in diplomatic affairs.

 

In 1996, he founded Fermandois, Evans and Co., LLP, a law firm specializing in administrative and constitutional law. That same year he was appointed Professor of Constitutional Law and Advanced Constitutional Law at Catholic University in Santiago.

 

In 2004-2005, he spent a semester as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and became a member of the Dean’s Alumni Leadership Council at the Kennedy School.

 

Back in Chile, his affiliations have included being a member of the Legal Circle of ICARE, an organization that promotes entrepreneurship and business administration. He also has been a member of the Chilean Association of Constitutional Law and an arbitrator at the Center of Arbitration and Mediation of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce since 2009.

 

Fermandois has written several books, among them: Economic Constitutional Law (1st edition 2001, 2nd edition 2006) and Applied Constitutional Law (2008). He is co-author of Constitutional Reform 2005 and editor of an annual volume of top Chilean judicial decisions, Supreme and Constitutional Court Review (years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008). 

 

He has published more than 40 articles in Chilean and foreign law reviews, and written weekly legal commentaries on jurisprudence in the daily constitutional newsletter Informe Constitucional for five years.

 

In addition to studying the violin for five years, Fermandois sings and plays electric guitar in Rockasaurios, a classic rock band he founded. He and his wife, Carolina Santa Cruz, have five children.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Official Biography (Embassy of Chile)