PRESS RELEASE

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JOINT PRESS RELEASE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION 
ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE INTERNATIONAL 
ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION

Today the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), represented by its Executive Secretary, Ambassador Jorge E. Taiana, and the International Organization for Migration, represented by its Director General, Brunson McKinley, signed an institutional Cooperation Agreement designed to consolidate and streamline hemispheric efforts to improve the promotion and protection of the rights of migrants in general, and especially those of migrant workers and members of their families.

This institutional Cooperation Agreement paves the way for a series of joint activities promoting the observance and effective protection of the human rights of migrants in the Americas by the IACHR, as the principal organ of the Organization of American States responsible for promoting and protecting human rights in the Hemisphere and by the IOM, in its capacity as an intergovernmental organization helping to deal with the various challenges posed by migration.

Both institutions are aware that migration issues, especially those to do with migrant workers and members of their families, today constitute a key area in the progressive universalization of international relations and that it is necessary to address those issues from a multilateral perspective, while also bearing in mind the desire expressed by the Heads of State and Government of the Americas in the Second Summit of the Americas that a special effort be made to guarantee full observance and respect for the human rights of migrants.

The two institutions trust that this Cooperation Agreement will lead to joint activities in the near future.

 

Washington, D.C., March 22, 2000