If the energy transition requires territorial sacrifices and repression in the South, it is not a just transition. Mariana Paterlini, who participated in on behalf of CELS, explains how COP30 exposed the geopolitical trap of green extractivism and why Latin America must reclaim its sovereignty and rights to forge a truly democratic climate future.
Human rights must be at the core of every decision taken at the COP, including respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, women, and environmental defenders.
Since its launch, 7 projects have been approved—well below the “avalanche of capital” announced by the government. To analyze its impacts from a human rights, environmental justice, and territorial sovereignty perspective, a group of organizations, research institutes, and academics have set up the RIGI Observatory.
The transformation of the state being advanced by the Argentine government is not just an administrative “modernization.” It is a political project that fosters greater concentration of power and inequality, and seeks to effect a regime change by unconstitutional means.
In a short time, Javier Milei’s government has cemented a difficult scenario for journalism in Argentina through the closing of public media outlets, the discretional use of state advertising, and authorities’ stigmatization of and aggression against journalists. Such obstacles to freedom of the press undermine democracy.
Labeled as terrorists without any judicial process, at least 260 people were deported from the US and detained in the Salvadoran CECOT after an agreement between Trump and Bukele. Together with organizations from around the world, we call on the UN Security Council to investigate the situation and demand the releases
CAREF, CELS, and the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM) called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to urge the Argentine government to repeal Decree 942/2024, as it undermines due process guarantees and the right to seek and receive asylum. Furthermore, we emphasized that the State must uphold its obligations regarding the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and, in particular, ensure the competence of the officials responsible for adjudicating asylum claims.
Four episodes, four countries, four stories that show how the use of pesticides affects health, access to land and environment of different communities in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil.
We are concerned about the dissemination of false information by the IMF. Even more troubling is the Executive Board’s continued endorsement of a government program that is exacerbating the living conditions of the most vulnerable sectors. Various human rights organizations and civil society groups have sent a letter.
Based on extensive research and numerous interviews, an alliance of six civil society organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Germany are submitting an OECD complaint against this company for the serious impacts of industrial agriculture in South America.
We have compiled a document highlighting international human rights standards, enshrined in the Argentine Constitution, which are not upheld in the president’s DNU 70/23. This material, submitted to Congress as a contribution to legislative efforts, serves as a guide to the declarations, conventions, principles, and observations within the international system pertaining to the rights impacted by the DNU.
We filed a petition with Argentina’s federal administrative court. It is our view that the decree violates the separation of powers, suppressing or restricting individual and collective rights and guarantees. We underscore that the DNU’s submission by the executive power breaches constitutional rules, usurping powers that are prohibited to him and reserved for the National Congress.
The announced measures imply the violation of social and economic rights of broad sectors of the population and will exacerbate impoverishment and a social crisis that will be difficult to recover from. This type of adjustment cannot be presented as the only possible path.
In collaboration with other organizations, we submitted our contributions to the Court’s Advisory Opinion on the right to care. This process began after the Argentine state requested the Court pronounce on the content and scope of care as a human right and its connection to other rights.
Narrated by journalist Noelia Barral Grigera and with the participation of analysts, social activists, and experts in economics and politics , among others, CELS is launching a podcast series on Argentina’s external debt. In six episodes, which will be available on Spotify, we delve into what debt is, its scope, and why it is important to understand the tangible consequences it has on fundamental rights such as work, health, and education.
Alongside 195 organizations worldwide, we demand that the UN establish an independent monitoring mechanism to investigate the treatment of migrants in border areas and its underlying structural causes.
Despite having the right to ownership and possession of their ancestral territories, this right is not enforced nor are there policies in place to guarantee that Indigenous people can live out their lives in keeping with their identity. The progress made in recent decades has not been sufficient. State response is often couched in rhetoric and stigmatizing stereotypes. The growing number of complaints is linked to this historic debt.
A group of organizations in the region urge the governments that signed the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection to put these commitments into action to defend the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
US, UK, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland in violation of international human rights law in “prolonging the pandemic” ahead of vital World Trade Organisation meeting .
Seven human rights organizations are defending at the ICSID the end of privatized pensions in Argentina. Social security is a human right and pension funds are meant to ensure a decent life for people and not enriching companies.
We applaud the Executive Branch’s decision to repeal DNU 70/2017, the implementation of which posed a clear setback for migrant rights in the country over the past four years. The annulment of this decree is a fundamental step towards equality, the right to migrate and towards the recognition of the State’s obligation to regulate migration.
We applaud the Executive Branch’s decision to repeal DNU 70/2017, the implementation of which posed a clear setback for migrant rights in the country over the past four years. The annulment of this decree is a fundamental step towards equality, the right to migrate and towards the recognition of the State’s obligation to regulate migration.
National Gendarmerie had pressed charges against the 20 year old in April 2020 as a result of activities of mass surveillance on social media officially referred to as “cyber patrols”. He was dismissed in late 2020.
The situation deserves a reaction to the true problem: thousands of people have nowhere to live.
Grief must be considered as a right, which cannot be reduced to an individual matter. Families and individuals should not face alone the demise of their loved ones. The impact of these deaths needs to be shared and processed collectively. Joint document with Memoria Abierta.
During the pandemic, the sharp increase in state surveillance in Argentina has been marked by a lack of transparency regarding the methods used or the destination of the information collected. This opens the door to human rights violations in terms of freedom of expression, right to assembly and to privacy.
For the travesti* and trans community, the implementation of COVID-19 prevention measures is often synonymous of further restriction to their already precarious access to housing, food, health and work. Public health policies for members of this community must be inclusive and integrated, and the State must actively repair years of violations to their rights. This is a joint statement with the Bachillerato Popular Travesti-Trans Mocha Celis (the Mocha Celis Travesti-Trans High School).
Argentina is ordered to cede an undivided deed to 4000 km2 of ancestral territory to the Lhaka Honhat Association of Aboriginal Communities, among other reparations.
For the past 40 years, Ramona has been fighting ongoing harassment by the agricultural industry to keep the land on which she was born. We went on site to meet with our colleagues of Movimiento Campesino de Córbdoba and presented an amicus curiae brief to the local Court.
Vanessa’s deportation is proof of the inherent threats involved in Argentina’s immigration policy as modified by presidential decree. The decision to revert her expulsion is a step forward towards the restauration of children’s rights.
The Committee of the Convention on Migrant Workers (CMW) determined that the decree breaches international treaty ratified by Argentina in 2007.
The US Justice Department’s charges are an attack on basic journalistic activities. Whistleblowers who provide information of public interest require protection.
A group of organizations submitted information to the IACHR on the migration policies of the provincial governments of Jujuy and Chubut. We also provided details regarding a series of expulsions of migrants.
The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas promotes measures to guarantee access to land, the protection of seeds in light of their commodification and a stop to evictions, among many other issues.
More than 160 UN member countries endorsed the Global Compact for Migration at an intergovernmental conference held on December 10-11. This agreement includes some important advances, above all in a context of growing xenophobia and nationalism in Latin America and the world.
When victims of human rights violations or their relatives seek justice, it is fundamental that they have psychological support. Organizations from the region that do such psycholegal work met in Buenos Aires to exchange strategies.
Argentina’s food and drug regulator authorized the sale of misoprostol in pharmacies under a special prescription mechanism. This is a hugely important move for the health of women and persons with the capacity to gestate.
This document compiles the information sent to the UN committee evaluating Argentina’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In a context of economic crisis, fiscal adjustment and preexisting structural limitations, the outlook is worrisome.
Thirty-five organizations published an open letter demanding that the Argentine state and Neuquén province fulfill the commitment they made to Ivana Rosales before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her daughter continues to demand justice, a year after Ivana’s death.
The Senate voted to sustain the clandestine nature of abortion in Argentina, after months of massive social mobilizations.
We call on senators to vote in favor of rights and against clandestine conditions, criminalization and death.
The new Global Compact represents a turning point in the international management of migration. But much work remains to ensure that its implementation is focused on the protection of the rights of migrants.
During the final round of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, 40 organizations urged UN member states to ensure that the accord fully incorporate a rights-based approach. The last draft includes changes that reinforce a focus on control and security. If this is validated, countries will have wasted a historic opportunity to fuel a paradigm shift.
Argentina must review legislation that is discriminatory, such as the criminalization of abortion and the lack of access to health care for women who decide to interrupt their pregnancies. The IACHR also put itself at the disposition of states in the region to assist with establishing a clear separation between the secular state and religious beliefs.
After the lower house passed a bill to legalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy through week fourteen, 129 votes to 125, we call on senators to vote in favor of human rights and of ending clandestine abortions in Argentina.
The green scarf of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion became part of the uniform of high school students. Teenage girls formed gender committees within student councils and are coordinating efforts to fight for their rights.
CELS participated in the last hearing in Congress on legal abortion. Edurne Cárdenas spoke there about the need to guarantee access to this right.
At the fourth of six rounds of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, state delegations from various regions defended the importance of addressing regularization procedures.
The latest draft of the Global Compact for Migration avoids mentioning the regularization of those who are already living in their destination country, which is a serious omission. Opinion piece by Camila Barretto Maia, Diego Morales y Raísa Ortiz Cetra.
As demonstrations against public service rate hikes and the influence of international creditors take place in Argentina, this hearing before the IACHR made clear that fiscal policy cannot be addressed without taking human rights into account.