ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Colombians’ roles in the promotion of human rights in the world against the backdrop of decolonization and the Cold War. It starts at the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Latin America held over three sessions between 1973 and 1976 to expose state terror and support the cause of national liberation. Then, it moves to the International Declaration of the Rights of Peoples on July 4, 1976, in Algiers, a rejoinder to the human rights work being done in Geneva, New York, and Washington, D.C., and the Permanent Peoples Tribunals that over the next decades denounced political violence and economic exploitation. Finally, it looks at the International Tribunal of Opinion on Barrancabermeja in 1999, and the Permanent Peoples Tribunal on Colombia in 2008, among other examples. The chapter highlights the work of Colombian public figures such as writer Gabriel García Márquez and activist father Javier Giraldo. It analyzes how these experiences allowed generations of Colombians to remain involved in the phenomenon of civil society-led popular tribunals. The chapter situates these experiences within a broader transnational history of exchanges highlighting the country's contribution to the formation of an international community of solidarity.
