Achievements

During the 2006-2007 biennium, awareness about human rights was raised among UN agencies, governments, national human rights institutions, judges, members of parliament, human rights defenders, NGOs, and the general public through official communications to governments, training activities,work with the media and advocacy. Several workshops and seminars were organized, including a regional seminar on follow-up to the implementation of the recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (Costa Rica, 2006), a National Seminar on the Establishment of a Human Rights Institution (Chile, 2007), and the Colloquium on the Protection of Victims of Human Rights Abuses in Argentina, organized in collaboration with the National Human Rights Secretariat and the Comité para la Defensa de la Salud, la Ética Profesional y los Derechos Humanos (CODESEDH, Committee for the Defence of Health, Professional Ethics and Human Rights) in 2007.

The Office also reinforced its partnership with UN partners, including the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and other UN regional offices, and with regional intergovernmental organizations. Several activities were jointly organized, including a regional workshop on the elaboration of human rights-based national Millennium Development Goal reports (in collaboration with ECLAC, UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA, Chile, 2007); a Regional Seminar on Migration Governance and Human Rights (in collaboration with IOM, Chile, 2007), and the Regional Seminar on Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in collaboration with ECLAC, Chile, 2007). The Office monitored the human rights situation in the region and strengthened its interaction with UN Country Teams and other national actors, such as national human rights institutions, and worked with academic institutions to organize awareness-raising and capacity-building activities. In 2007, the Office submitted comments on the draft law on the death penalty to the Peruvian Congress. The Office also organized several training activities on incorporating human rights into UN planning processes for UN staff in the region (Ecuador, 2007; Trinidad and Tobago, 2007; Chile, 2007).
 

Priorities

 
In 2008-2009, the Office will concentrate its efforts in Latin America on the identified regional priorities: the fight against impunity, poverty and inequality, discrimination against Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples, and insecurity and violence, including violence against women.

OHCHR will help raise awareness about international human rights instruments and recommendations issued by international human rights mechanisms. The Office will help civil society organizations obtain access and provide information to UN human rights mechanisms, and will help disseminate and implement the recommendations of special procedures and treaty bodies. The Regional Office will also foster dialogue to deepen cooperation between the inter-American human rights system and the UN human rights mechanisms to help strengthen governments’ commitment to human rights. The Office will promote the ratification of newly adopted human rights treaties, namely the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Protocol.

In order to have concrete impact in all the countries covered, the Regional Office will establish solid working relations and regular communications with governments, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, especially regional networks of NGOs and academic institutions, UN Country Teams, regional UN agencies and other regional organizations.

The Office will cooperate in the implementation of the Andean Programme on Human Rights Protection and Empowerment of Indigenous Peoples and Afrodescendants in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

In an effort to increase the number of steps taken to allow groups that are discriminated against to participate in public policy decision-making, seminars, forums and other public activities will be conducted with the aim of strengthening the knowledge and capacity of regional human rights organizations on issues related to the administration of justice, the rights of the child, the rights of indigenous peoples and women’s rights.

The Regional Office’s comparative value-added in the region is its proven human rights expertise. For the UN Country Teams in the region, OHCHR assumes the leadership in human rights issues and the Regional Office will provide practical tools and guidelines on integrating human rights in UN programmes and joint planning activities. There is a growing consensus in the region that the human rights-based approach is a valuable tool for sustainable development, the fight against poverty and for strengthening social cohesion and protection systems. It also helps governments and UN Country Teams understand and abide by international human rights obligations, and facilitates monitoring of human rights.