Canada signs the OAS Belém do Pará Convention citing “increased attacks on human rights defenders”

Published by Brent Patterson on March 9, 2025March 9, 2025

Photo: Canada’s Permanent Representative to the OAS, Ambassador Stuart Savage signed the Convention at the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC. On March 7, 2025. Photo by Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS.

A Global Affairs Canada news release dated March 7, 2025, highlights: “The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, are pleased to announce that today, Canada signed the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention).”

That news release notes: “Amid increased attacks on human rights defenders and growing global uncertainty, Canadian leadership in promoting and protecting human rights as a core element of Canada’s feminist foreign policy is more important than ever.”

Canada recognizes various categories of human rights defenders including women human rights defenders, LGBTI human rights defenders, Indigenous human rights defenders, and Land rights and environmental human rights defenders in its Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders.

The Convention

The Convention was first adopted in 1994. As of March, 2020, 32 of the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS) have signed the Convention. The United States remains the singular non-signatory.

The six-page Convention can be read in full here.

Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua (in 1995), Colombia (1996) and Mexico (1998) have all ratified the Convention.

The MESECVI follow-up mechanism

The OAS has also explained: “The effective implementation of the Convention requires a continuous and independent evaluation process, which in 2004 led to the creation of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI).”

In May 2023, the Committee of Experts of the MESECVI expressed “its deep concern over the increase in acts of violence against women journalists and human rights defenders throughout the region.”

The Convention, the Escazú Agreement and environmental defenders

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has also noted: “The leaders of State Parties to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for a two-day summit [on August 8-9, 2023]. During the Summit, State Parties presented the Belém Declaration outlining their collective commitments.”

The State Parties to this Treaty are Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

At the time of that two-day summit in 2023, Carla García Zendejas of CIEL commented: “Latin America remains the most dangerous region in the world to speak out in favor of land, water, and our basic right to live in a healthy environment. Colombia and Brazil have the highest levels of violence, killings, and threats to defenders worldwide. Yet the Belém Declaration fails to acknowledge how conflicting forces in the region continue to put oil and gas projects and devastating extractive and infrastructure plans forward despite pushback from communities and Indigenous leaders advocating to protect the ecosystems on which they rely.”

She continued: “This makes the absence of any mention of the Escazú Agreement (the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean), in a declaration by South American nations that is meant to solidify urgent cooperation in the Amazon region, even more egregious. This glaring omission illustrates an ongoing failure to understand the role defenders play in protecting the right of every citizen to live in a clean and healthy environment and to ensure that this right exists for future generations.”

Canada and the Escazú Agreement

On March 5, 2021, Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor presented to the UN Human Rights Council on the threats against and killings of human rights defenders.

During that session, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN Leslie E. Norton stated: “Some states have established specific protection mechanisms to prevent risks and attacks against HRDs and to intervene when need be. Canada wants to stress these important milestones such as the Escazu Regional Agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Nicaragua (in March 2020), Mexico (in November 2020) and Colombia (in August 2023) have ratified the Agreement. Guatemala signed the agreement in September 2018, but has not ratified it. Honduras has not signed the agreement.

We continue to follow this with specific attention to the safety and security of human rights and environmental defenders.