Brazil as a leader in the Latin American Refugees' Regime

Abstract

The article presents an exploratory study of Brazil´s role in the consolidation of the Latin American refugees’ regime. Our analytical perspective considers that there is a regional refugees’ regime in Latin America, one gradually constituted since the conference in Cartagena in 1984, when the countries of this region established principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures related to the refugees’ issue, including in the existing regime an expanded concept of refugees, more encompassing than the UN Convention’s concept (1951). Moreover, and having examined different sources of evidence, including a set of experts’ judgments and organizational reports, we argue that the country has been broadly acknowledged as a regional leader in the Latin American refugees’ regime, including by the UNHCR. We then propose an explanation for this international recognition of Brazil’s leadership in this issue area, which includes not only the country active role in the development of this regional regime, but also its role model due mainly to its advanced national legislation on refugees (being the first country in the region to incorporate in its national law the expanded refugee definition accorded in the Cartagena Declaration), the exemplary experience of the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE), the initiative of a regional solidary resettlement program, the institution of the humanitarian visa for Syrians refugees and the participative role of civil society in this context. With more countries closing their borders to refugees and difficult negotiations in the multilateral arena, we conclude that positive experiences like the Brazilian one deserves more attention from the international community and International Law (IL) and International Relations (IR) scholars.

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