Saúl Castro Fernández
Saúl Castro Fernández is a registered lawyer at the Madrid Bar Association since 2020. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law (LL.B) and in Political Sciences (B.Sc.) from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; and a Master of Laws (LL.M) in Legal Practice from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Beyond this legal background, Saúl is currently studying a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.
Saúl joined Guernica in 2018 and he has been supporting universal jurisdiction criminal cases in Spain as well as assisting in the presentation of applications before the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, Saúl has also drafted reports directed at the International Criminal Court and collaborated in the different lines of investigation of international crimes committed in Latin-American countries, such as Venezuela.
Throughout his college experience and early career, Saúl has built an international and interdisciplinary profile. He was awarded with several scholarships that allowed him to study two years abroad in three different continents, gaining broad knowledge in international and compared law at University College London, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and University of Sydney.
Saúl is deeply engaged in the fight for social justice and the defense of human rights, specially advocating for the complete inclusion of sexual and gender minorities. In that vein, he has participated in multiple roundtables, delivered several workshops and lectures at different universities as well as addressed different media outlets on LGBTIQ+ issues. Saúl is also a volunteer at Amnesty International Spain, working in the sexual and gender diversity team. He also collaborates with other local LGBTIQ+ NGOs and participates on a monthly basis in Wisteria Lane, the only LGBTIQ+ public radio program in Spain, where he talks about LGBTIQ+ rights and international affairs.
In order to increase his expertise in his two passions –international law and LGBTIQ+ rights–, Saúl has attended different specialization courses, namely ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Law’ at the University of Leiden and ‘Sexuality, Gender Identity and International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law’ at the Geneva Academy. He also writes periodically at www.queeridico.es, a legal blog specialized on queer issues and human rights.
In October 2020, Saúl joined Women’s Link Worldwide as a legal consultant, where he is involved in three specific projects regarding strategic litigation on freedom of expression, right to abortion, human trafficking, and work exploitation. Furthermore, in January 2021, Saúl founded the Spanish Association against Conversion Therapy –No Es Terapia–, a project directed at lobbying and advocating for the criminalization of said practices, assisting survivors of these abuses and prosecuting through strategic litigation the existing providers of conversion therapy.
Finally, Saúl has complemented his professional background and academic training by developing a wide range of diverse skills, getting involved in several projects. He has been a member of different debating societies as well as of an amateur drama association, self-staging, adapting and performing three different plays. In addition to that, Saúl holds a Professional Diploma in Violin, furthering his knowledge of classical music at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, where he studied a year of composition.