Jean-Claude Duvalier (French: [ʒɑ̃klod dyvalje]; 3 July 1951 – 4 October 2014), nicknamed "Baby Doc" (Haitian Creole: Bebe Dòk, French: Bébé Doc), was a Haitian dictator who held the presidency of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in February 1986. He succeeded his father François "Papa Doc" Duvalier as the ruler of Haiti after his death in 1971. After assuming power, he introduced cosmetic changes to his father's regime and delegated much authority to his advisors. Thousands of Haitians were tortured and killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the country during his presidency. He maintained a notoriously lavish lifestyle (including a state-sponsored US$2 million wedding in 1980) while poverty among his people remained the most widespread of any country in the Western Hemisphere.

Relations with the United States improved after Duvalier's ascension to the presidency, and later deteriorated under the Carter administration, only to normalize under Ronald Reagan due to the strong anti-communist stance of the Duvaliers. Rebellion against the Duvalier regime broke out in 1985, and Duvalier fled to France in 1986 on a U.S. Air Force flight.

Duvalier unexpectedly returned to Haiti on 16 January 2011, after two decades in self-imposed exile in France. The following day, he was arrested by Haitian police, facing possible charges for embezzlement. On 18 January, Duvalier was charged with corruption. On 28 February 2013, Duvalier pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption and human rights abuse. He died of a heart attack on 4 October 2014, at the age of 63.

Transparency International determined that the money embezzled by Duvalier was the sixth most embezzled by a sitting head of government between 1984 and 2004.

The son of Simone Ovide, a Mulatto-Haitian woman, and François Duvalier, a black nationalist anti-mulatto leader who became dictator of Haiti, Duvalier was born in Port-au-Prince and was brought up in an isolated environment. He attended Nouveau College Bird and Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague. Later, he studied law at the University of Haiti under the direction of several professors, including Maître Gérard Gourgue.

In April 1971, he assumed the presidency of Haiti at the age of 19 upon the death of his father, François Duvalier (nicknamed "Papa Doc"), becoming the world's youngest president, as well as the only non-royal state leader under the age of 20. Initially, Jean-Claude Duvalier resisted the dynastic arrangement that had made him Haiti's leader, having preferred that the presidency go to his older sister Marie-Denise Duvalier. He was content to leave substantive and administrative matters in the hands of his mother, Simone Ovide Duvalier, and a committee led by Luckner Cambronne, his father's Interior Minister, while he attended ceremonial functions and lived as a playboy.

Duvalier was invested with absolute power by the constitution. He took some steps to reform the regime, by releasing some political prisoners and easing press censorship. However, there were no substantive changes to the regime's basic character. Opposition was not tolerated, and the legislature remained a rubber stamp.^{[citation needed]}

Much of the Duvaliers' wealth came from the Régie du Tabac (Tobacco Administration). Duvalier used this "non-fiscal account", established decades earlier, as a tobacco monopoly, but he later expanded it to include the proceeds from other government enterprises and used it as a slush fund for which no balance sheets were ever kept.