On December 9, 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, together with the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (Redesca) and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE), adopted and presented the Inter-American Principles on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy. These principles are the result of several months of work by members of the Academic Network, of which the Human Rights and Education Centre (HRREC) is an active participant in the context of its involvement with the Scholars at Risk Network and the HRREC Human Rights Clinic’s Project Scholars at Risk in the Americas.
The Centre's role was to ensure that the text included the regional reality that our team has monitored, studied, and analyzed over the years as it has tracked cases of academic freedom violations, created advocacy strategies to work with local and regional actors, and mobilized legal resources to protect the right to academic freedom in the region.
The intention of these principles is to become a tool to defend the right to academic freedom, protect academic communities, and maintain democratic societies.