Our work in the European Union

The EU’s institutions and participation spaces offer advocacy mechanisms to make human rights violations in Latin American and Caribbean countries more visible. In this sense, Race and Equality carries out articulated and coordinated advocacy work with other organizations and networks of civil society before different formations of the European Parliament, such as the Subcommittee on Human Rights, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Delegations for relations with regions and countries of Latin America, as well as before the secretariats of the political groups.

It also lobbies the European External Action Service (the EU entity that implements the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and conducts diplomatic relations with other countries), the office of the EU Special Representative for Human Rights and the European Commission’s Directorate for International Partnerships. At the level of the EU Member States, our focus of work is the Working Group on Latin America and the Caribbean of the Council of the EU (COLAC). Race and Equality also offers technical assistance and training to organizations and activists in Latin America, facilitating their access to EU institutions, mechanisms and work processes.

Currently, Race and Equality has a representative in Brussels, who is responsible for designing and carrying out the organization’s advocacy strategy before the institutions of the European Union and its different bodies.

Our Work at the UN

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights (Race and Equality) promotes the participation of Latin American civil society organizations in different UN human rights mechanisms, particularly those working on issues of race, gender, LGBTI+ persons and the protection of human rights defenders in contexts of authoritarian regimes.

For years, we have provided technical assistance to our partners in order to increase their participation and engagement with the UN. We support them in the preparation of alternative or “shadow” reports to be submitted to the UPR and other UN treaty bodies, and in the preparation of complaints submitted for Special Procedures mandates.

We also facilitate the participation of our partners in meetings with diplomats, UN officials and other relevant parties; we promote public events with our partners to publicize the conclusions and recommendations of the mandates of various organizations, with the aim that these findings can become advocacy tools for civil society organizations in Latin America.

Our Work at the OAS

Race and Equality provides technical assistance to Afro-Latino, indigenous, LGBTI+ and other human rights organizations on how to implement an advocacy agenda in the OAS. We maintain a constant presence in the meetings of the political organs of the OAS and have worked with this regional institution together with human rights organizations to promote the approval and ratification of new regional instruments.

We are currently seeking to build the capacity of Afro-Latino and indigenous organizations to work with their governments and their government delegates at the OAS to advocate for the signing and ratification of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance (CIRDI), approved by the OAS General Assembly in Antigua. Guatemala in 2013.

Race and Equality also works to build the capacities of its partners to present critical information on specific human rights issues to the various political organs of the OAS, such as the Permanent Council, the Summits of the Americas Process, and the General Assembly, in order to promote the participation of these organizations in the fight against racial discrimination.

From our Legal Program, we carry out actions such as requesting precautionary measures and provisional measures for human rights defenders, and we litigate cases of human rights violations before the IACHR and the Inter-American Court. To this is added the advocacy work to denounce the situation of people deprived of liberty for political reasons.