UNESCO, Inter-American Human Rights System Partner for Impunity Day Conference

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Inter-American Human Rights System are collaborating to hold an international conference in San JosĂ©, Costa Rica, as an advance commemoration of this year’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.

The Impunity Day Conference is set to hold on October 9 and 10, 2015 and will include actors from the judicial and legal communities. The Conference will be held in the auditorium of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in San José and is expected to especially attract judges and prosecutors from the Latin American and Caribbean region.

The conference will examine how impunity towards crimes against journalists is considered one of the main factors fuelling the cycle of violent crime against the exercise of freedom of expression and human rights more broadly. It will deepen and share experience and jurisprudence of International Courts, as well as national references in regard to national High Courts.

Holding the event in mid-October hopes to provide advance global and regional signal about the UN’s International Day against Impunity for Crimes against Journalists which is marked on November  2.

The 2015 San José event will initiate an online discussion and an online course and will be taking place within the wider context of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, which has been endorsed by the UN Chief Executives Board and appreciated by the UN General Assembly.

The tentative Agenda, with participants still to be confirmed, includes representatives from national courts in Latin America, the Ibero-American Summit of Judges, as well as global regional courts of human rights. Civil society groups, for example in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Guatemala, will be asked to discuss their role in awareness raising and in work to strengthen the effectiveness of mechanisms to protect journalists and end impunity.