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The two independent UN anti-torture expert bodies, the Committee Against Torture and its Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture, publicly 'deplored Nicaragua's refusal to cooperate', and publish confidential report in an unprecedented move. Over the past year, Nicaragua has refused to undergo reviews by six UN committees on torture, women's rights, racial discrimination, civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights.

The Escazú Agreement is the first legally binding instrument in the world to include provisions on environmental human rights defenders. Environmental defenders of Latin America and the Caribbean have just concluded the first official meeting to define how to realize those promises made to enable and protect their work.

ISHR accompanied defenders during the negotiations at the UN on the elaboration of an international legally binding treaty that seeks to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations.

We did it! On 7 October 2022, the Human Rights Council renewed the vital mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Venezuela and the reporting mandate of OHCHR for another two years, with 19 votes in favour, 5 votes against and 23 abstentions.

States at the UN Human Rights Council have voted to renew the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Venezuela (FFM) for another two years, ensuring the continuation of a mechanism that has become central to the work of human rights defenders. It has also extended the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to report to the Council.

On 4 October 2022 during the General Debate Item 9 of HRC51, ISHR and LabJaca delivered a joint statement highlighting the disproportionate killing of Brazil's Black population, in particular the massacre in Jacarezinho last year.

In Venezuela it is government policy to torture dissents, the UN mission of experts on Venezuela told the world two years ago. These violations, amounting to likely crimes against humanity, continue. In their latest report the experts dive deeper into the nature of the crimes, who the victims are and names perpetrators. This morning this report goes before the Human Rights Council.

Eleven States vying for seats at the UN Human Rights Council for 2023-2025 joined ISHR and Amnesty International’s annual pledging event, outlining their commitments to advancing the human rights agenda and fielding questions from civil society.

In 2019, a group of largely Latin American states led a successful bid for the United Nations to establish an independent investigative mechanism on Venezuela in response to the human rights crisis in the country. During these years, the Mission has been a key mechanism in a system of complementary international bodies providing a vision of the change needed to eradicate impunity and prevent further systemic human rights violations. Now, a few weeks off the expiration of the Mission’s mandate, States in the region must again take leadership of a process to ensure its preventative work continues in particular with the uncertainty of a Presidential electoral period looming.

Over 125 Venezuelean and international organisations expressed their concern about the continuing human rights violations in Venezuela and called on the UN Human Rights Council to renew the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) on Venezuela at its upcoming September session.