Criminal Justice & Security
  

Counterterrorism and Organized Crime: We’re Taking the Debate to the UN and the IACHR

In the wake of the United States’ new security and defense strategies, the agendas of counterterrorism and drug trafficking in Latin America have converged to legitimize violent and repressive emergency measures. We are participating in various international forums to raise awareness about the impact this convergence has on human rights in the region.

The “Shield of the Americas,” which U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled on March 7 alongside twelve Latin American leaders, formalized at a summit the resurgence of two security policies that have already demonstrated their consequences in the recent past and now converge in a way that poses a risk to peace in the region: “the war on drugs” and the “fight against terrorism.” These approaches, which had been used to justify exceptional measures, are now being unified under the category of “narco-terrorism,” which seeks to enable the militarization of policies against organized crime and turn it into a strategy for the entire hemisphere. This reconfiguration presents us with urgent challenges: to document, investigate, and understand its implementation in order to bring it into public debate.

In this vein, we are moving forward with interventions at various forums of the United Nations and the Inter-American Human Rights System that took place in March 2026.

At the 69th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held in Vienna, we issued a joint statement with eight organizations to warn of the consequences of adopting an “anti-terrorism” approach to policies against organized crime, which then spreads to other areas of intervention—as is happening in Argentina with the crackdown on protests.

We also expressed this concern during the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which met in Geneva. There, we participated in an interactive dialogue with Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. The Special Rapporteur presented his report on the international definition of terrorism, in which he provided elements for distinguishing between that category and organized crime according to the applicable legal framework in each case. CELS outlined the situation in Argentina and described how the anti-terrorism narrative has been used by the Milei administration to persecute political dissent and criminalize those who protest.

In turn, at a hearing requested by twelve organizations in the region, we presented the same argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Together with INREDH, the ACLU, and CRISTOSAL, we discussed the various ways in which governments in the region use the anti-terrorism framework to address different issues, such as the fight against organized crime or the repression of political dissent. Also participating in that session was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Terrorism, Ben Saul, who was forceful in his criticism of the expansion of emergency regulations and policies associated with organized crime. Specifically, he drew attention to the use of the counterterrorism framework to restrict rights and expand states of emergency beyond international standards. Furthermore, he called on states to avoid the abuse of power and the discretionary application of counterterrorism tools.

The IACHR commissioners, for their part, expressed interest in the situations presented and voiced concern about the risks of using that narrative to criminalize vulnerable groups. Commissioner Pochak warned in particular about the deliberate confusion that governments create between terrorism and organized crime in order to expand their repressive strategies.

Organized Crime and Extreme Punishment of Women

We also organized events at the 69th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND69) in Vienna and at the 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) in New York to share the initial findings of a regional study conducted with the support of UN Women on punishment policies for crimes linked to organized crime and their differential impact on women and their families. For example, we identified how Argentina has implemented exceptional prison regimes that restrict rights, such as extreme isolation, visitation restrictions, and denial of access to healthcare.