André Luís Machado de Castro is a Public Defender of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) since 1998 and former General Public Defender of the State of Rio de Janeiro from 2015 to 2018. He holds a Master's Degree in Civil Law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro – UERJ and a postgraduate degree in digital law from the same university. He was the president of the Association of Public Defenders of the State of Rio de Janeiro (2002/2003) and worked in the Ministry of Justice as General Coordinator for the Modernization of the Judiciary of the Secretariat for the Judiciary Reform (2006/2007). In 2009, he was elected president of the National Association of Public Defenders of Brazil – ANADEP (until 2013) and, during this period, he was also elected General Coordination of the Inter-American Association of Public Defenders - AIDEF (2011/2012), participating in the implementation of the agreement with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Organization of American States - OAS. As of 2023, he is the Coordinator of the Human Rights Office of the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro.