In the past three weeks Latin American leaders have spoken out expressing their concerns over electoral conditions in Venezuela. While welcome, these individual voices don’t equal a larger institutional voice that can threaten sanctions if things should go awry in Venezuela.
In the run-up to the Venezuelan legislative elections on December 6th, 157 legislators from the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru sent a joint letter to President Nicolas Maduro.
Ecuador and Venezuela on the UN Human Rights Council? The UN General Assembly just voted Ecuador to the organization’s human rights body and renewed Venezuela’s mandate—two countries that have some of the worst human rights records in the Western Hemisphere.
Last week, Human Rights Watch, along with 36 other human rights organizations, issued a statement that Venezuela did not deserve to be re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council. This week, unfortunately, the UN General Assembly did just that. Here’s why the human rights groups were right.
The question isn’t how the majority of Venezuelan citizens will vote in the December 6 national assembly elections but what conditions the balloting will be conducted under… and whether the government will accept the results.
En los últimos años, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos se ha encontrado bajo constantes ataques diplomáticos destinados a debilitar el alcance de su mandato y privilegiar la soberanía nacional.
Should Latin America continue to put all its eggs in the commodity basket hoping for a return of the good times? Of course not. The region must diversify its economic base to focus on manufacturing and services as well. In the meantime, the agricultural sector needs greater unity across the sector to improve productivity, efficiency, and innovation.
The World Bank annual meeting in Lima, Peru this weeks offers a unique opportunity. While China’s massive investments in infrastructure are much-needed, they come with huge risks. The World Bank can reduce those by working with these new efforts—with all their capital—to apply the Bank’s experience in protecting the environment and local communities.
This week’s snapshot looks at Latin America’s rankings in the recently released Global Competitiveness Index, produced by the World Economic Forum. While the so-called ALBA countries continue to occupy the bottom of the regional pile, the biggest surprise is Brazil, which sunk 18 places.
UNASUR’s statement that it would not question the judicial decisions of its member states over the recent sentencing of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez was as predictable as it was troubling. It’s a perfect example of how the region has regressed, with little respect for its troubled past and a warning of things to come.
