In Defense of Democracy

DEMOS has led an effort to set up a Commission for Democracy in Latin America (in Spanish, Comisión para la Democracia en América Latina, CDAL), with the support of more than 60 recognized experts in democracy and human rights from 19 Latin American countries.

In a modest way, this professional agency would serve as something akin to a “CEPAL for Democracy;” in reference to the UN’s influential Economic Commission in Latin America, best known by its Spanish acronym, CEPAL; established in 1948.

The Commission for Democracy in Latin America would generate information and provide technical advice to help safeguard, strengthen and deepen democracy in Latin America, and bolster its human rights practices. The Commission would engage in the following tasks:

  1. Establish a network of leading Latin American specialists in the study of democracy and human rights.

  2. Create a think tank designed to generate and convey novel insights on Latin America’s democratic process. This would be advance by developing analytic tools and setting up observatories to monitor its quality and risks in a systematic and rigorous way.

  3. Advise regional organizations in Latin America, their member states, parliaments, political parties and relevant civil society actors on issues of democracy and human rights, and facilitate the exchange of ideas and capabilities between these countries.

  4.  Stimulate the formation of a ‘Latin American school of thought’ on democracy and human rights, in a way that recognizes the different national realities and common challenges at stake.

  5. Offer a platform for democratic resilience, innovation and creativity, grounded on relevant knowledge of global and regional practices.

DEMOS convened the first meetings of the CDAL Network. One took place in Uruguay, in 2015, under the auspices of the University of Toronto and the Open Society Foundation. A second gathering in Costa Rica, in 2018, was carried out in collaboration with the Instituto da Democracia of Brazil and the Estado de la Nación of Costa Rica and Ford Foundation funding.

These and other activities have marshalled support for the CDAL idea and underscored the need to develop instruments to defend democracy across the region.

See further information on the CDAL initiative and the development of its thematic agenda (in Spanish).