SANTIAGO (18 December 2024) – The Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights (PIERR), a group of UN and regional human rights experts, celebrate the adoption of the Chile Declaration and the Chile Action Plan.
Forty years after the adoption of the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, the PIERR celebrates the efforts of States, regional bodies and civil society organizations committed to comprehensively address the situation faced by millions of refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons in Latin America and the Caribbean, embodied in the recently adopted Chile Declaration and the Plan of Action 2024-2034.
The Cartagena Declaration expanded the concept of who is a refugee in Latin America and the Caribbean, extending the definition beyond those cases covered by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees to also include as refugees all those who have been forced to flee because their life, safety or freedom is threatened by a context of generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive human rights violations, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order. The Declaration was a milestone in the regional tradition of solidarity, asylum, refugee protection and cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the subsequent decades, the organs of the Inter-American Human Rights System have adopted the Cartagena Declaration's expanded refugee definition which was incorporated into the domestic legislation of 15 countries in the region supporting and dedicating efforts aimed at its effective implementation.
The recently approved Chile Declaration and Plan of Action 2024-2034 acknowledges the new humanitarian challenges affecting the region and proposes effective protection responses and solutions, highlighting the convergence and complementarity between International Human Rights Law, International Refugee Law, and International Humanitarian Law.
In this context, the PIERR appreciates that the 2024 Declaration of Chile reaffirms this commitment of Latin America and the Caribbean to ensure the human rights of refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons. Among the advances emphasized in the new Chile Declaration are integration programs, inclusive public policies, and measures against statelessness, as well as the need to address the structural causes of forced displacement and the effects of climate change.
In this sense, the Chile Declaration underlines the importance of meaningful participation of refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons – including provisions on specific protection needs based on age, gender and diversity – and collaboration with international actors, the private sector, academia, and civil society to implement the 2024-2034 Chile Action Plan.
The PIERR underscores that the adoption of a comprehensive approach that strengthens protection mechanisms in countries of origin, transit, destination, and return, and addresses the broad spectrum of individuals’ rights throughout the journey, requires a joint effort by all countries in the region. To this end, the Cartagena Declaration’s principles and commitments are more relevant today than ever.
The independent experts of the PIERR stand ready to cooperate actively with States and the international community to achieve greater protection and sustainable solutions for refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons that enable them to live in dignity and peace – in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the rest of the world.
ENDS
About the PIERR: The PIERR is currently composed of the mandates of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the human rights of migrants and on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, the Working Group on arbitrary detention, the UN Committee against Torture, the Special Rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and migrants in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Rapporteurship on Human Mobility of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Siobhán Mullally, PIERR Chair and UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children; Gehad Madi, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; Matthew Gillett (Chair-Rapporteur) and Priya Gopalan (Vice-Chair on Follow-Up), UN Working Group on arbitrary detention; Jorge Contesse, Member of the Committee against Torture; Selma Sassi-Safer, Commissioner and Special Rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and migrants in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and Andrea Pochak, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Human Mobility of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Platform is supported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
For more information on the PIERR, please refer to www.pierr.org.
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