In order to continue helping enhance Human Rights international protection levels and standards, Foreign Minister Felipe Solá presented Argentina’s candidacy to the UN Human Rights Council for 2022-2024, accompanied by the Argentine Secretary for Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla Corti, and the ambassador to the United Nations, María del Carmen Squeff.
“We have a State policy with our own Memory, Truth, and Justice process as its cornerstone. We have committed to Nunca Más (Never Again), to eradicate impunity for crimes against humanity committed during the last civil-military dictatorship,” stated Solá during the presentation videoconference. “When justice has been done for the past, people start to believe in the possibility of justice being delivered for the present and the future,” he stated.
He added that “for the last two decades we have been able to promote several instruments to protect human rights at the regional and international level, building significant consensus,” and he highlighted Argentina’s achievements in connection with the Right to the Truth, the protection of people from enforced disappearances, the use of forensic genetics in cases of human rights violations, expansion of rights for groups in vulnerable situations and prevention of genocides and other mass atrocities.
“The pandemic has hampered the enjoyment of all rights, whether economic, social, cultural, civil or political, especially damaging the most vulnerable ones. Gender inequality levels have increased, as well as the risk of violence against women and girls. States and the international community must urgently guarantee that the prevention and reparation of gender inequalities and violence be the core of the national plans Covid-19 response plans,” stated Solá in relation to the current challenges.
“The Coronavirus crisis presents us with the challenge of guaranteeing that vaccines and treatments available be accepted and recognized as a public health and human rights global asset,” he noted.
Regarding Argentina’s candidacy, the minister said: “We are committed to continue collaborating to enhance international Human Rights protection levels and standards. Therefore, we aspire to renew our term on the Human Rights Council in next October’s elections. Argentina is committed to fighting for the enhancement of the Council’s special procedures and to ensure that members can work independently.”
“We will continue to support High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet and her work in the field, both in the monitoring of the human rights situation and the creation of institutional capacities to prevent these violations from happening, whatever the country violating human rights or its ideology or political identity,” stated Solá and stressed that “we must avoid two risks: polarization and stigmatization, which always lurk, and instead advocate for more international cooperation.”
Pietragalla noted that “we are very respectful and listen to the recommendations of international Human Rights organizations, and we also know that they draw on the human rights policies implemented by Argentina. Human rights are the core of the public policies implemented by the Government. This has allowed us to achieve unique advances in the region, making us a global role model.”
The activity was attended by Cecilia Meirovich, the Foreign Ministry Director for Human Rights.
Currently, human rights promotion and protection constitutes a State Policy that applies to all public policies, establishing itself as one of the main pillars of Argentina’s foreign policy, focused on the strengthening of international law, multilateralism, cooperation, and promotion of the universal values embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter and other international instruments on the promotion of all human rights.
Argentina has ratified all international human rights treaties, and the 1994 Constitutional Reform incorporated into the Constitution the main international human rights law instruments on human rights. In addition, the government carries out a wide-ranging public policy agenda in this field.
