The Organization of American States is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a human rights treaty ratified by members of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The record of human rights in Venezuela has been criticized by human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Concerns include attacks against journalists, political persecution, harassment of human rights defenders, poor prison conditions, torture, extrajudicial executions by death squads, and forced disappearances.
James (Jim) Cavallaro is a professor of law and the co-founder and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights. He teaches human rights at Wesleyan University, where he is a director of the Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, as well as the Wesleyan ACTS for Human Rights program. In addition to Wesleyan, Cavallaro frequently teaches at Yale Law School, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He also teaches at Columbia Law School and the University of California Berkeley. Prior to launching the University Network, Cavallaro founded the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at the Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School, United States. In 2018, Cavallaro and Ruhan Nagra founded the University Network for Human Rights, an organization that engages undergraduates and graduate students and their universities in human rights work in the United States and around the world. Cavallaro served as a commissioner (2014-2017) and President (2016-2017) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Cavallaro received his BA from Harvard University and his JD from University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where he served on the California Law Review and graduated with Order of the Coif honors. He also holds a doctorate in human rights and development from Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain.
Luis Leonardo Almagro Lemes is a Uruguayan lawyer, diplomat, and politician who currently serves as the 10th Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) since 2015. A former member of the Broad Front, Almagro served as Minister of Foreign Relations of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 under president José Mujica.
Emilio Álvarez Icaza Longoria is a Mexican human rights ombudsman and activist serving as a senator in the LXIV Legislature of the Mexican Congress from Mexico City. He previously served as the president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Catalina Botero Marino is a Colombian attorney who served as the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) from 2008 to 2014. From 2016 to 2020, she was the Dean of the Law School of the University of Los Andes (Colombia). Since 2020 she is one of four co-chairs of Facebook's Oversight Board, a body that adjudicates Facebook's content moderation decisions.
Jaime Aparicio Otero is the Bolivian Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States and was Bolivian Agent to the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, in the process against Chile related to the Silala waters. Ambassador Aparicio is a career diplomat, lawyer, journalist and a Washington-based legal and political advisor. He was also a political analyst working in international public and corporate affairs in Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. He has a Law Degree from the Higher University of San Andrés of La Paz, the Bolivian Diplomatic Academy and the Institute d’Etudes Politiques commonly referred as Sciences Po de Paris.
On September 26, 2014, forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College disappeared after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, in what has been called one of Mexico’s most infamous human rights cases. They were allegedly taken into custody by local police officers from Iguala and Cocula in collusion with organised crime, with later evidence implicating the Mexican Army. Officials have concluded there is no indication the students are alive, but as of 2024, only three students remains have been identified and their deaths confirmed.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights is a non-governmental organization based in Managua. Vilma Núñez, a former Sandinista, founded the organization on May 16, 1990, shortly after the election of President Violeta Chamorro.
The 2018 Nicaraguan protests began on 18 April 2018 when demonstrators in several cities of Nicaragua began protests against the social security reforms decreed by President Daniel Ortega that increased taxes and decreased benefits. After five days of unrest in which nearly thirty people were killed, Ortega announced the cancellation of the reforms; however, the opposition has grown through the 2014–2018 Nicaraguan protests to denounce Ortega and demand his resignation, becoming one of the largest protests in his government's history and the deadliest civil conflict since the end of the Nicaraguan Revolution. On 29 September 2018, political demonstrations were declared illegal by President Ortega.
María Guadalupe Murguía Gutiérrez is a Mexican lawyer and politician of the National Action Party (PAN). She is a national senator for the state of Querétaro. She has held several public positions in Querétaro state government, and was the President of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico from March to September 2017.
The following is a list of reactions to the 2019 Bolivian political crisis.
Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño is a lawyer and Supreme Count judge. She is a Panamanian Commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (OAS). In 2019 she became President of that body.
The 2019 Sacaba massacre occurred when Bolivian soldiers and police attacked and broke up a protest led by Bolivian coca growers at Huayllani in Sacaba municipality, Cochabamba on 15 November 2019. It came in the first week of the interim presidency of Jeanine Áñez. Marchers intended to enter the town of Sacaba and proceed to the departmental capital of Cochabamba to protest the ousting of Bolivian president Evo Morales, but were stopped by the police and military. During the afternoon, police and soldiers clashed with protesters, and eventually soldiers opened fire on the crowd. Eleven demonstrators were killed; an estimated ninety-eight people were wounded, including four journalists and eight members of the security forces. Two hundred twenty-three protesters were arrested, many of whom suffered mistreatment and at least nine of whom were tortured.
The 2019 Senkata massacre occurred when Bolivian soldiers and police broke up a road blockade at the YPFB gas facility in Senkata, El Alto, Bolivia, on 19 November 2019. It occurred one week into the interim presidency of Jeanine Áñez and four days after the Sacaba massacre. Rural and urban protesters had blockaded the plant shortly after the ouster of Bolivian president Evo Morales. Their protests were part of nationwide blockades by his supporters denouncing the ouster as a coup d'état, and urban protests in El Alto against the new government's desecration of the wiphala, an Indigenous flag designated a Bolivian national symbol by the 2009 Constitution. By 14 November, protesters had built barricades as part of their blockade.
The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts is a committee of jurists and doctors created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to carry out a parallel investigation of the abduction and disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. The group was established in 2014 and issued two reports by 2016. It was reactivated in 2020.
The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia is a committee of jurists and human rights experts created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to carry out a parallel investigation of human rights violations during the 2019 Bolivian political crisis, covering the period from 1 September 2019 to 31 December 2019. The group was established following discussions between the IACHR and the interim Bolivian government led by Jeanine Áñez in December 2019, and an agreement between the two in January 2020. Its four members were appointed on 23 January 2020. The Group was supported by a five-member technical team and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. The Group began its work in Bolivia on 23 November 2020 and issued its final report on 23 July 2021.
Andrea Pochak is an Argentine lawyer. She was elected to serve on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) from January 2024 through to the end of 2027 and to be the OAS's Rapporteur on Human Mobility.
