Law Degree (Summa Cum Laude), Central University of Venezuela, (1962). Post graduate courses at the Université de Paris (1962-1963); and Doctor of Laws (Summa Cum Laude), Central University of Venezuela (1964).
In Venezuela, he has been Senator for the Federal District; Head of the Presidential Commission on Administrative Reform, and Minister for Decentralization; and was elected Member of the National Constituent Assembly in 1999.His last books in English: Constitutional Protection of Human Rights in Latin America, Cambridge University Press, New York 2009; Dismantling Democracy. The Chávez Authoritarian Experiment, Cambridge University Press, 2010.