Foreign Policy and Human Rights 

UN, Geneva - 2011

Created at the end of 2005, the goal of this project is to strengthen regional and international protection of human rights by making Global South countries, particularly Brazil and other new emerging powers, accountable for their foreign policies’ decisions that affect human rights. It also aims at promoting the use of the UN and regional human rights systems by NGOs from Africa, Asia and Latin America, in order to contribute to the effectiveness of these mechanisms to achieve real impact of the ground.

In Brazil, Conectas works on creating mechanisms for civil society to participate in and monitor foreign policy. It is a founding member of the Brazilian Committee on Human Rights and Foreign Policy. Since 2007, Conectas has published the yearbook “Human Rights: Brazil at the UN”, a compilation of Brazil’s votes and initiatives, as well as of the recommendations addressed to the country.

Foreign Policy and Human Rights project's main activities are:

1) To monitor and influence the Brazilian foreign policy impacting human rights, by increasing access to information, working with the media, increasing dialogue and interaction with relevant stakeholders and conducting advocacy work.

2) To foster and empower NGOs from key emerging democratic powers to work on their countries’ foreign policies on human rights – such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa.

3) To make use of regional and international systems to contribute to the improvement of the human rights situation in Brazil and Global South countries, and supporting other southern NGOs in doing so. 

In 2010, Conectas established a permanent representation in Geneva (Switzerland), in partnership with the organizations Centro de Estudios Legales e Sociales (Argentina) and Corporación Humanas (Chile).