Council on Hemispheric Affairs

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), is a nonprofit, tax-exempt independent research organization. From its beginnings, COHA's board consisted of leaders from some of the country's most important trade unions, professional organizations, religious groups, and distinguished civic and academic figures. They joined together to advance their common belief in support of representative government, human rights and pluralistic institutions throughout the hemisphere. In 1982, COHA's board of trustees voted to expand its mandate to include monitoring Canadian/Latin American relations. Since its inception, COHA has been one of the most active U.S. private bodies dealing with political, economic and diplomatic issues confronting the nations of this hemisphere.

COHA supports open and democratic political processes just as it consistently has condemned authoritarian regimes of any stripe th that fail to provide their populations with even minimal standards of political freedoms.