On October 26-27, the Latin American Network (LAN) held its annual Focal Points Meeting in Mexico City. The meeting was co-organized by the Auschwitz Institute in its capacity of Technical Secretariat of the Network and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of Mexico (SRE) as the host institution.
This year’s event marked the first in-person meeting of the Latin America Network since 2019. With this in mind, Eugenia Carbone, Director of the Auschwitz Institute’s Latin American Program and Technical Secretary of the Latin American Network, expressed the following:
After two years of virtual meetings, the summit that the Network held in Mexico on October 26 and 27 represented the opportunity to dialogue more closely and renew commitments for prevention in Latin America. The Focal Points present there, with the accompaniment of AIPG as Technical Secretariat, reviewed the forum’s priorities, identified common ground to continue working, and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Network (2012-2022).
In this year’s edition of the LAN meeting, the Network members discussed new challenges and national, binational, and regional approaches to preventing genocide and mass atrocities in the region. Civil society organizations and corporate sector members were also invited to participate as observers in discussions to design joint strategies with government representatives.
During the meeting, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of Mexico presented on the theme of “Firearms as a key enabler for acts of mass violence that require joint efforts in regulation and control as a preventive action” as a case study. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion organized by AIPG, where representatives from the corporate sector (White & Case law firm), government (Secretariat of Foreign Affairs), and civil society (AIPG) shared their views on the importance and existing challenges around ESG principles (Environmental, Social and corporate Governance) as best practices for corporations that require joint efforts from every relevant actor at the local level.
In conclusion, the annual meeting of the Latin American Network for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities – 10th-anniversary edition (2012-2022) presented the opportunity to reunite the member countries of the Network in person, deepen the collaborative efforts between governments at the regional level, and to resume and initiate discussions on current shared challenges.