Early beginnings

Insulza was a member of the Popular Unitary Action Movement (MAPU) from 1969 to 1973. He ran for deputy for the Third District of Santiago, Puente Alto, in the 1973 parliamentary election but was unsuccessful. He served as Political Advisor to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Chile in 1973.

Exile in Mexico

Following the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, Insulza was prohibited from re-entering Chile (he had been at an international conference in Paris at the time). He spent the next 15 years in exile, living first in Rome, Italy from 1974 to 1981 and then in Mexico from 1981 to 1988. There, he worked as a researcher, eventually becoming the Director of the United States Studies Institute at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE). He also taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Universidad Iberoamericana, and the Diplomatic Studies Institute. He has written numerous publications in his field.

He joined the Socialist Party of Chile in 1985.

Return to Chile

Insulza returned to Chile in early 1988 and joined the Concertación coalition of left-leaning political parties as a member of the Socialist Party. Following the end of military rule, Insulza was appointed Chilean Ambassador for International Cooperation in 1990. He became Director of Multilateral Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Vice President of the International Cooperation Agency (AGCI) some time later. He became a member of the Chilean Association of Political Science, the Bar Association, and the Chilean Council of International Relations.

On March 11, 1994, Insulza became Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs under president Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. On September 20, 1994, he rose to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. On June 22, 1999, he became Minister Secretary-General of the Presidency. On March 11, 2000, he took office as Minister of the Interior under president Ricardo Lagos.

Secretary General of the Organization of American States

Insulza was elected Secretary General of the Organization of American States on May 2, 2005, following Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez's withdrawal from the race. (See 2005 Organization of American States Secretary General election.)

On January 5, 2007, Insulza criticized Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez's decision not to renew television channel RCTV's broadcast license (Chávez had accused the station of being a coup d'état instigator.^[2]) Three days later, Chávez responded to Insulza by calling for his resignation and referring to him as a pendejo—a Spanish profanity equivalent to "dumbass".^[3] Insulza later received the support of several OAS members, including the US, and Chávez conceded he had gone too far with his words. In April 2008, Chávez congratulated Insulza for stating in a presentation before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that there was no evidence linking Venezuela to terrorist groups.

Insulza openly stated his intention to run for President of Chile, but withdrew from the race on January 5, 2009 and vowed to continue as Secretary General of the OAS until the end of his mandate. He gave his support to Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle as the Concertación candidate for president.

On March 24, 2010, Insulza—the sole candidate—was reelected (with the abstention of Bolivia) as OAS chief for another five-year term.^[4]

Insulza won the Washington Office on Latin America's prestigious Human Rights Award^[5] in 2008. In 2014 Insulza was awarded the prestigious Kalman H. Silvert Award presented by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.^[6]