USIP cordially invites you to join us for a discussion with Vice President of Colombia Francisco Santos Calderón. Vice President Santos will talk about the status of human rights in Colombia today and Colombia’s experience engaging in a new United Nations process, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

In 2006, the United Nations revised its human rights infrastructure and instituted a new mechanism for the protection of human rights, the Universal Periodic Review. The UPR is a State-driven process which, under the auspices of the new U.N. Human Rights Council, engages each of the 192 Member States in an assessment of the status of human rights in their countries. Under the UPR process, States report to the international community on what they have done to fulfill their international obligations to protect and promote human rights and to address human rights violations when they occur. Colombia was one of the first Member States to engage in the UPR process and produced a report in 2008. Vice President Santos, who is the Coordinator for the Presidential Program on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, headed the UPR process in Colombia.  He will reflect on the process and the challenges remaining for the promotion of human rights in Colombia will assess the UPR process and the challenges remaining for the promotion of human rights in Colombia.

Speakers

• Featuring:
  Vice President of Colombia Francisco Santos Calderón
• Dr. Michael Shifter, Discussant
  President-elect, Inter-American Dialogue
• Dr. Virginia "Ginny" Bouvier, Moderator
  Senior Program Officer, U.S. Institute of Peace