Joint Statement by organizations in the Americas, Europe and beyond on the actions by the UN Human Rights Council against Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan people

To the United Nations Human Rights Council:

We are organizations based in the Americas, Europe, and beyond who work in solidarity with Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution and with the Nicaraguan people. We strongly oppose the actions taken by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in support of US regime-change plans for Nicaragua.

We refer specifically to the reports of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), released by the UNHRC in March 2023 and February 2024.[1]

We call on the UNHRC to rescind these reports and terminate the work of the GHREN. We assert that these reports:

1.      Make recommendations which are incompatible with resolutions by the UN General Assembly and by the UNHRC on the illegality of unilateral coercive measures.

2.      Fail to meet the UNHRC’s requirement that the GHREN examine “all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018”.

3.      Fail to take account of or even acknowledge legitimate and detailed evidence submitted to the GHREN.

We note that the latest report on Nicaragua published in September 2024[2] appears to be based at least in part on the work of the GHREN and is similarly unbalanced and flawed.

1. The GHREN reports are incompatible with UN and UNHRC resolutions

The GHREN specifically calls for unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) or “sanctions”, imposed by the US and many allied administrations against Nicaragua, to be increased. The GHREN’s reports are also being used as evidence to justify UCMs by the states that have already imposed them.

However, dozens of General Assembly Resolutions, most recently of 19 December 2023[3],  resolutions  of the Human Rights Council, most recently of 11 October 2023[4], identify the specific violations of international law inherent in UCMs and the threat they pose to international peace and security. These resolutions, adopted with ample majorities, urge all states to lift UCMs.

We call on the UNHRC, in accordance with previous resolutions, to reject these recommendations, to make clear that the GHREN reports do not support the use of UCMs against Nicaragua and to call for the ending of the current UCMs imposed by the US and other member states.

2. The GHREN reports do not meet the assignment set by the UNHRC

The GHREN were specifically required to examine “all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018”. Their reports do not do this, because they have failed to record (or in some cases only briefly record) hundreds of clear human rights violations by the opposition forces which, in 2018, attempted to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. In doing so they murdered government supporters, officials and police; carried out extortion, kidnapping, torture and other crimes against ordinary Nicaraguan citizens; and deliberately destroyed hundreds of public buildings and other assets, depriving citizens of vital services including health, education, sanitation and many more.

We believe that the reason for these omissions is that the GHREN relied almost entirely on evidence from the Nicaraguan government’s opponents, who in turn had privileged access to the GHREN’s personnel. Its second report claims to have made 642 interviews with victims, but none appear to come from the thousands who suffered opposition violence.

We call on the UNHRC to withdraw the reports on the basis that they fail to meet the terms of reference set by the UNHRC.

3. The GHREN ignored legitimate and detailed evidence submitted to it

The first GHREN report, published in March 2023, was condemned in a letter signed by many prominent human rights experts and by 119 organizations and 573 individuals.[5] The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition sent detailed criticisms and substantial additional evidentiary material in response to the report.[6]

The second report, published in February 2024, made no reference to the 2023 letter or to the extensive material submitted alongside it. This report was also condemned in a letter signed by leading human rights experts, 49 organizations and more than 300 individuals.[7] The letter says that the GHREN’s report should never have been published.

Neither of these letters were acknowledged and the evidence was totally ignored.

A call to the UN Human Rights Council

Based on the criticisms set out in this statement, and in more detail by the letters and submissions from the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, the organizations below call on the UN Human Rights Council to terminate the work of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua immediately, to dissociate the UNHRC from the work of the GHREN and to withdraw the two reports already published.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN ON: bit.ly/NicaUN3

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/ghre-nicaragua/index

[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5720-situation-human-rights-nicaragua-report-united-nations-high 

[3] https://www.un.org/en/ga/78/resolutions.shtml

[4] https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/regular-sessions/session54/res-dec-stat

[5] https://www.nicasolidarity.com/blog/coalition-statement-un-human-rights-council

[6] English: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ll47bsor70c13xg8896ba/AKEsny4jv_uP38_dQDzQChs?rlkey=vhuz5k4ezancv9qcy7g0c4a5f&st=3bfgrd1z&dl=0 Español: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/c7ik1s5604u6k76ds90vd/AHz4TY_mTrXJltPvh0xJOQg?rlkey=004zrsxe1dxxrd3scw8lyzg3f&st=n75v86h6&dl=0

[7] https://www.nicasolidarity.com/blog/coalition-statement-un-human-rights-council