The Trump administration and right-wing governments across Latin America are working to seize control of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the hemisphere's primary bulwark against authoritarian abuse—and the institution that has defended victims from Chile to Guatemala for more than six decades.
Six countries—the United States, Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru—have submitted a reform proposal to the Organization of American States claiming to "strengthen" the Commission by reducing delays and increasing transparency. But former IACHR executive secretary Paulo Abrão and legal scholars warn the initiative is anything but neutral.
"This is a closed-door negotiation among a select group of countries," Abrão told ICL Notícias. "The Commission is a patrimony of the region's states and peoples—it should not be restructured in secret."
The IACHR, created in 1959, has documented massacres under military dictatorships, condemned extrajudicial killings by security forces, and enabled the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hold governments accountable. Its reports have been essential evidence for prosecuting crimes against humanity from Argentina's Dirty War to Colombia's false positives scandal.
But that independence has made it a target. The U.S. State Department directly protested an IACHR hearing that examined American military operations in the resulting in over one hundred deaths. 's , who has called human rights organizations is now a leading voice for
