What is the Cartagena declaration?
The Cartagena Declaration on Refugees is a technical, legal, political and strategic instrument of cooperation and shared responsibility between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Its adoption expanded the concept of refugee stipulated in the 1951 Refugee Statute and its 1967 Protocol by including “persons affected by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violations of human rights or other situations that they disturb public order,” as read on the website of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama – made up of government delegates from ten countries in the region – adopted the declaration on November 22, 1984 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The declaration is a model of regional cooperation to develop solutions and strengthen the international system of protection for refugees, forcibly displaced people and stateless people. Starting in 2004, the creation of common ten-year action plans was established.
Cartagena “is a very important instrument because it allows countries to cooperate regionally to address the growth of the migratory trend in our region,” said Luiz Fernando Gudinho, UNHCR Spokesperson for the Americas, in an interview with DW.
“The Cartagena Process has allowed the region to advance in humanitarian reception and protection, through the development of common and coordinated solutions to address migration challenges, in matters such as legal identity,” Luana Medeiros, Director of the Department of Human Rights, told DW. Migrations of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security of Brazil. That country has led the Cartagena +30 process, between 2014 and 2024, a decade that “imposed very great challenges for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean” that are going through a migration crisis “because “Many people mobilized in the region in a very short space of time,” Medeiros added.
Stages of the Cartagena Process
The Cartagena Process created a tradition among the countries of the region of making common, ten-year strategic plans to address the problems of uprooting in the region.
Between 1994 and 2004, Cartagena +10, the San José Declaration on Refugees and Displaced Persons, was adopted, which analyzed the importance of protection and the need to address growing internal displacement. Cartagena +20, led by Mexico, innovated by introducing three pioneering programs regarding protection and durable solutions: Solidarity Cities, Solidarity Resettlement and Solidarity Borders.
Cartagena +30, Brazil’s Action Plan, established a roadmap for the decade from 2014 to 2024, which put into practice the principles of “solidarity, international cooperation and shared responsibility”, integrating for the first time the Caribbean countries as members of the process. It also “included statelessness as a new area of protection along with quality asylum and solutions, establishing strategies for the Caribbean and Northern Central America, given the complex scenarios of human mobility and statelessness that they are experiencing.
Operation Welcome: an example of good practice in the region
The government of Brazil, from its leadership of the Cartagena +30 Action Plan, and as a humanitarian response to the Venezuelan migration crisis, integrated the reception strategy Operation Reception (Operaçao Acolhida), which, with the support of civil society, focuses on three pillars. The first is Border Management, which, according to Medeiros, “has focused on the protection, the organization of the border so that people arrive in Brazil safely, are identified and receive the necessary information to choose and know the options immigration in the country”, and, in addition, basic medical care and immunization.
The second pillar is Accommodation in border cities, which includes food, education, health and social protection. It includes Voluntary Relocation to other areas of Brazil where migrants have greater economic and integration opportunities.
Medeiros highlights labor relocation as an attempt by the Brazilian government to raise awareness and mobilize large companies “so that they can see the potential and advantages of employing the migrant population.” According to Luana Medeiros, currently some 39,000 migrants have been relocated by insertion into the formal labor market, of the more than 130,000 migrants and refugees received by Brazil in the last six years. “It is a very great achievement for the government and for the Cartagena Declaration,” he points out, a case of good practices. “The inclusion of migrants and refugees in the labor market is definitely an important step, and the support and participation of the private sector are key to making this integration broader and more effective,” said Gudinho.
Cartagena +40, in Santiago de Chile
In Santiago de Chile, Cartagena +40 -Declaration and Action Plan of Chile will be adopted in December 2024. The adoption of the new ten-year strategic plan involves the coordination of three regional consultations, in which “one of the axes of discussion is the integration of refugees and migrants, and solutions for people who are already in destination countries, in countries of origin and also in transit countries,” Tomas Pascual Ricke, Director of Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, explained to DW.
The consultations are focused on the Protection and assistance of people in situations of human mobility and stateless people, the discussion of comprehensive strategies for solidarity solutions, and the relevance of the participation of the private sector, “considering the good practices that we collected in the consultations of Mexico and Brazil, where the private company has played a fundamental role, in a dimension of protection and sustainability of the permanence of people in the context of displacement through employability” indicated Pascual Ricke.
The third consultation will take place in Bogotá, from June 18 to 20, 2024, and will focus on the problem of forced displacement due to disasters. Pascual Ricke considers a very important component “the idea of addressing the challenges posed by forced displacement due to natural disasters due to climate change” from the Cartagena +40 Action Plan.
The consultations aim to reflect on what each country and other organizations are doing in terms of international protection, to include them in the new roadmap for the Cartagena +40 negotiations in Geneva, in order to strengthen protection and solutions to the migratory wave in the region. The Action Plan will be announced in December together with the Santiago Declaration.
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