Foreign policy and Human Rights

(3) Fostering the creation, at the national level, of formal mechanisms for civil society participation in foreign policy formulation - the integration between foreign policy formulators and civil society must be constant as in other areas of policy making. This must also be permanent - in constitutional democracies, the different entities of the state (executive, judiciary and legislative branches) must participate in the formulation of foreign policies by complementing each other.

It is in the interest of civil society participation at foreign policy formulation that Conectas encouraged the creation of the Brazilian Committee of Human Rights and Foreign Policy. The mission of this new Committee is to “promote the prevalence of human rights in the Brazilian foreign policies and strengthen the participation of citizens in order to have a better control of what is being decided on the international scene by creating formal mechanisms of interaction between the foreign policy formulators and the civil society.” The committee includes: NGOs, Human Rights Commission and Minority Rights of the Lower and Upper Chamber, the Federal Attorney General for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens as well as the HIV/AIDS Program of the Ministry of Health. With the success of its creation, Conectas intends to stimulate other NGOs, from other global south countries, to also create formal mechanisms of systematic interaction between the civil society and those responsible for the definition of its external policies that impact the human rights.

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(1) strengthening southern NGOs’ participation at the UN Human Rights System;

(2) promoting joint advocacy and mobilization among activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America;