 So, some years ago, I found myself as a young lieutenant at Fort Bending, Georgia, and I made a very good friend and another lieutenant, a fellow lieutenant from Burkina Faso. And we had some time off one weekend, we had a long weekend, and I asked him, I said we should go somewhere, we should go get to know some place in this wonderful state and this wonderful region. So how about the beach? No, no, he said, I get bored at the beach. Well, how about the mountains? He said, no, no, we're in infantry training, we've done enough mountains this week. Well, how about Atlanta? Atlanta is a very exciting city, lots of nightlife, two strapping young men like us. Who knows? No, no, no, I'm not interested in Atlanta. I said, well, where do we go? He said, I want to go to one place. I want to go to Plains, Georgia. And I want to see the city, the town, the region, the place that produced this remarkable man, Jimmy Carter. I just texted him overnight and he said that that remained one of the highlights of his time in the United States, along with a visit to NASA. So between Rockets and Jimmy Carter, I thought that was quite an extraordinary testimony of the impact that Jimmy Carter has had globally, has had on so many people around the world. It would have been nice if we could have all just convened in Plains, Georgia and held this event there and been in the place again that started this wonderful voyage of this magnificent president of ours and this wonderful gift to humanity. But absent that, we're very flattered that the U.S. Institute of Peace has been honored with the ability to host this event today on the legacy of Jimmy Carter in promoting democracy and human rights in the hemisphere. My name is Keith Mines. I'm the Vice President for Latin America at USIP, which was established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 as a national nonpartisan institute dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad. The Law to Commission a Study of a National Peace Academy, headed by Senator Matsunaga, a veteran of combat who wanted to America to have a monument and learning establishment dedicated to peace, was signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. President Carter was the recipient of the USIP Matsunaga Award along with President Reagan in 1994. The award cited President Carter's work on making human rights a cornerstone of his foreign policy, the Camp David Accords, and his later work as a mediator, election observer and promoter of peace. So to my friend and Burkina Faso who's joining us today along with others in Haiti, I offer a hearty bonjour to others in the hemisphere Buenas tardes, good afternoon, and boa tardes. We're very honored by your presence. I'd like to recognize OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, a good friend of the Institute, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Enrique Roig, Congressman McCormick, former Vice President Navarro, Foreign Minister Alberto von Klavenin, and many other distinguished guests who have labored to bring President Carter's vision of a more just and democratic hemisphere into fruition. Many distinguished guests will join us on the panel today and will be introduced as they arrive. I would also like to recognize the family of Judge Thomas Burgenthal and Pat Patricia Darian, champions of human rights, and to thank the many others joining us online. And I'd also like to thank the Carter Center for including us in this event and the National Museum of American Diplomacy for the display of some of President Carter's memorabilia that you can see after the event on the veranda. And our other partners for the event, the Inter-American Dialogue, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Department of State, and the Organization of American States. Some 300 years ago, the French philosopher Denis Diderot pointed to contemporary writers who were too daring for the time in which their work appeared. They were not fully appreciated until a day when the age they had outstripped had passed away and another century to which they really belonged in spirit overtook them at last and finally gave them the justice their merits deserve. Looking at the legacy of Jimmy Carter, one wonders if the world didn't need some decades to fully appreciate the message he had for us and the example he set. But it is still a challenging one, a discomforting one. It is not a call to complacency but a call to action to make the hemisphere a more just and equitable place where human dignity is at the forefront of the decisions of policymakers and the collective efforts of citizens. I'd like to now turn the podium over to Secretary General Almagro for his remarks followed by Deputy Assistant Secretary Roy and the program will proceed from there. Thank you. Distinguished friends, dear minister, friends, colleagues, during his statement to the 10th General Assembly of the Organization of American States in 1980, United States President Jimmy Carter said, the cause of human rights will be at all the stronger if it remains at the service of humanity rather than at the service of ideological or partisan ends. And if it condemns both terrorism and repression in the phrase human rights, the rights are important, the human is very important. This section of the phrase human rights has very bit of significance today as it did then. It is an honor to stand before you today to express my deepest admiration and appreciation for one of the greatest champion of democracy and human rights in the Americas. President Carter's tireless efforts in advancing democracy have left an indelible mark on the Americas. And ever since he first stepped foot through the doors of the Organization of American States in April 1977, his views have marked the institution. One of President Carter's enduring legacies will be the successful ratification of the Panama Canal treaty signed between the United States and Panama at the OES on September 7, 1977, which was an exhibition of cooperation between these two states that preserved peace and security in the Americas. Furthermore, his commitment to the values of the inter-American democratic charter made him a beacon of hope for those fighting against oppressive regimes. And he remains committed to the democratic principles of freedom, justice, and equality for all in the Americas and beyond. His efforts through the Carter Center are my best regards to Ginny. Thank you very much for everything, including his selfless and compassionate work with Habitat. For humanity, it has positively impacted the lives of millions. And his staunch advocacy for promoting free and fair elections, condemning human rights abuses, and supporting democratic and peaceful transitions in countries across the Americas is why he was all too deserving of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In my meetings with President Carter, we always emphasize the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless and to respect the demands of the citizens, seeking good governance, and help them force a path away from authoritarianism and repressive systems of governance. No single individual has made so lasting an impact on so many nations in resolving conflicts and promoting peace. President Carter remains a steadfast in his commitment to democracy and human rights, even in the face of adversity. He played a leading role in assisting democratic transitions. Venezuela, Nicaragua, I.T., Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Guyana, his mediation efforts in these countries demonstrated his deep understanding of the complexities of regional challenges and his solid commitment to peaceful resolution. His persistent pursuit of dialogue and ability to bridge divides have earned him the admiration and respect of global leaders and citizens alike. He firmly believes that the advancement of democracy and the protection of human rights are inextricably linked, understanding that a society cannot truly flourish unless all its citizens are granted the freedoms and opportunities they deserve. His legacy serves as a reminder of the power of principal leadership and the enduring importance of the inter-American democratic charter. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his lifelong pursuit of a more just and democratic America. For me, personal is kind of a hero. His work during the U.N. dictatorship made a substantial difference for so many of our friends. His photo is in my office and my visit to planes, too, is maybe the highest moment of my tenure as Secretary-General of the Organization of American States. Thank you very much. I'm truly honored to join this distinguished group today. Respect for human rights and the need for strong democracies are issues about which I feel deeply passionate about. My own mother is from Chile, a country that endured the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet. I know many of you here today have your own personal stories to share about the struggle to protect human rights and support democracy. For me, it meant pursuing a career working on these issues with President Carter as my beacon of hope that the United States could be a champion in pursuit of these ideals. Specifically, that idealism for me resulted in coming to Washington as a young 20-year-old and starting my career at a think tank focused on Central America. It was there on my first international work trip that I met President Carter in Nicaragua in 1994 at a conference on Reflections on Democratic Transition. Looking back at that time now seems like another universe, though it sticks out for me from that conference and throughout his life as President Carter's ability to bring people together to have difficult conversations and his commitment to pushing the envelope on the thorny issues even years after his presidency. For those of you here who know him much better, I know this isn't come as a surprise to you. This has been part of his DNA forever and his election in November 1976 placed human rights concerns at the highest levels of U.S. foreign policy, something no U.S. president had ever done. This made a difference in people's lives. President Carter has also reaffirmed throughout his long life the importance of the OAS in promoting human rights and democracy. It was at the OAS in 1977 that President Carter signed the American Convention on Human Rights. He, along with First Lady Rosalind Carter, advocated regional support of its ratification so it could eventually come into force in July of 1978. In the place where I work now, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor was created by President Carter to help advance individual liberty and democratic freedoms around the world under the leadership of our first Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Patricia Pat Darian. And it was during this time that the State Department's country reports on human rights practices came to play a key role in Carter's administration. President Carter and then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance declassified and publicized these reports using them to inform policy decisions. Traditionally oppressed sectors welcome these human rights reports, which they saw as part of America's support for democracy. President Carter also challenged the assumption that security assistance to repressive regimes, furthered Cold War aims, and instead adopted the view that, particularly in the Southern Cone, U.S. support for these regimes had damaged its global leadership and made the U.S. complicit in human rights abuses. From 1977 to 1979, his administration cut military aid to Latin America from 210 million to 54 million. Strategically voted no on international financial institutions loans and selectively blocked import bank financing. And let's not forget that Carter's threat just to suspend financing led the Argentine military junta to agree to the historic 1979 onsite visit of the Inter-American Commission, which produced incontrovertible evidence to the world of state-sponsored atrocities. Pat Darian returned in 1985 to testify in the historical trial of the juntas, the subject of last year's Oscar-nominated film Argentina 1985. At the time of Carter's presidency, he was also dealing with similar challenges as we face now. A lack of respect for democracy and human rights, backsliding in countries that had been strong democracies, a closing of civic space, migration, and racism and discrimination. Despite it all, President Carter continued to put human rights and democracy at the top of his regional agenda. And he was also keenly aware of the threats of national security and was as much a realist as he was an idealist. This approach didn't please everyone as there were loud critics on both the left and the right. Though throughout it all, President Carter understood the correlation between issues such as mass migration, drug trafficking, and public health concerns with corruption, undermining of democratic institutions, and threats to civic space. And he recognized the need to address the root issue, weak democracies. Today, many of the past challenges persist in the Americas, while newer technologies such as commercially available spyware have added new risk of human rights abuse and privacy invasions. A major concern is dealing with mass migration humanely and in the context of rising global competition and democratic backsliding. Like President Carter, President Biden is profoundly committed to human rights within this global context and specifically to the Organization of American States. The US remains deeply invested in the future of the OAS and the inter-American system. We want to see them both thrive. We need to strengthen the OAS to advance governance that is not only democratic but also effective and inclusive. And here in the year 2023, President Carter's legacy endures and calls us to act urgently on pressing human rights and democracy challenges. And as I'm learning in this new DRL role, that is not always easy. I often feel like I'm at a summer barbecue and I'm that wasps buzzing around someone's head, annoying them to no end talking about human rights. But then, more wasps show up and also start doing the same thing. That for me is the legacy that President Carter has left us, the ability for many of us to buzz around and continually center US foreign policy on human rights. So on that final note, we're about to see a video of an excerpt of President Carter's 1978 speech recounting his seminal decision to center US foreign policy on human rights. A decision that has had positive, long-lasting effects around the world. Thank you very much. That's all I have to say today. It's fundamental. Very simple. It's something I've said many times, including my acceptance speech when I was nominated as president and my inaugural speech when I became president. But it cannot be said too often or too firmly nor too strongly. As long as I am president, the government of the United States will continue throughout the world to enhance human rights. No force on earth can separate us from that commitment. This week, we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We rededicate ourselves in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission. To the Universal Declaration, as, and I quote from her, a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations, end quote. The Universal Declaration and the Human Rights conventions that derive from it do not describe the world as it is. But these documents are very important nonetheless. They are a beacon, a guide to a future of personal security, political freedom, and social justice. For millions of people around the globe, that beacon is still quite distant. A glimmer of light on a dark horizon of deprivation and repression. The reports of Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International League for Human Rights, and many other non-governmental human rights organizations amply document the practices and conditions that destroy the lives and the spirit of countless human beings. Political killings, tortures, arbitrary and prolonged detention without trial or without a charge. These are the cruelest and the ugliest of human rights violations. Of all human rights, the most basic is to be free of arbitrary violence. Whether that violence comes from governments, from terrorists, from criminals, or from self-affointed messiahs operating under the cover of politics or religion. But governments, because of their power, which is so much greater than that of an individual, have a special responsibility. The first duty of a government is to protect its own citizens. And when government itself becomes a perpetrator of arbitrary violence against its citizens, it undermines its own legitimacy. There are other violations of the body and the spirit which are especially destructive of human life. Hunger, disease, poverty, or enemies of human potential, which are as relentless as any repressive government. The American people want the actions of their government, our government, both to reduce human suffering and to increase human freedom. That's why with the help and encouragement of many of you in this room, I have sought to rekindle the beacon of human rights in American foreign policy. Over the last two years, we've tried to express these human concerns as our diplomats practice their craft, and as our nation fulfills its own international obligations. We will speak out when individual rights are violated in other lands. The universal declaration means that no nation can draw the cloak of sovereignty over torture, disappearances, officially sanctioned bigotry, or the destruction of freedom within its own borders. The message that is being delivered by all our representatives abroad, whether they are from the Department of State or Commerce or Agriculture or Defense or whatever, is that the policies regarding human rights count very much in the character of our own relations with other individual countries. Well, that's set the scene perfectly for our first panel. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Margaret Myers. I direct what's called the Asia and Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. It is such an honor to be here and to be able to celebrate President Carter's legacy, also to be part of this important, and indeed, as we've mentioned several times over, already very timely discussion and event, and then, as always, to work in very close partnership with the U.S. Institute of Peace, the U.S. Permanent Mission to the OAS, the Department of State, the Carter Center, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Carter Center is also a favorite place of mind to visit, along with, of course, the Koch Museum and the many other things that Atlanta has to offer. Our first panel of the day will consider President Carter's impact on human rights policy and what we've learned from his approach and vision in the years that have followed. And I am very pleased to welcome an absolutely stellar group of speakers to provide some commentary on this issue. Commissioner Roberta Clark is currently serving as the second vice president and country rapporteur for the United States at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, where she plays a crucial role in monitoring and addressing human rights issues within the region. Prior to joining the OAS, Commissioner Clark had an impressive career in the field of human rights advocacy, holding various key positions, including serving as regional gender advisor for the United Nations Development Program in the Caribbean region. Mark Schneider is a senior advisor with the America's Program at the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS. He served as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs under President Carter and as director of the Peace Corps and assistant administrator of USAID for Latin America and the Caribbean. Juan Mendes is a professor of human rights law at American University's Washington College of Law, where he's faculty director of the anti-torture initiative. Mr. Mendes also served as the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel and humane degrading treatment or punishment from 2010 to 2016. Prior to that, he was a member and then president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He was additionally executive director of the Inter-American Human Rights Institute from 1996 to 1999. I don't know, oh, perfect timing. Mr. Tom Farrar has a distinguished career as a public servant, including as special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs in the Carter administration. He was later member and then president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Tom is currently professor of international relations at the University of Denver, and we're so happy you were able to beam in. I hope you can hear us loud and clear, but that was indeed perfect timing. So thrilled to have this wonderful group of speakers of commentators here with us to discuss this topic. Each will provide some very brief opening remarks on the topic and then we'll move into a very short period of moderated Q and A. So with that, let me turn it first to you, commissioner. Sure. Thank you very much, Margaret. Good afternoon, everyone, as commissioner and the rapporteur for the United States. I am really pleased to represent the commission in this tribute to the legacy of the former US president, Mr. Carter. I want to thank the US Institute of Peace, the Carter Center and the Inter-American Dialogue and the US Permanent Mission to the US for this invitation. I also extend my greetings and appreciation to everyone here. Across his life, as we've heard already, President Carter has been a persistent and an insistent advocate for human rights. In my presentation today, I will focus on his contributions to the Inter-American human rights system in general and to the work of the commission in particular. President Carter spoke of the importance of the Inter-American human rights system on numerous occasions, noting that its existence is an achievement of which we all should be proud and whose integrity we should protect. He reaffirmed that states should not view the institutions of the Inter-American system, the commission and the court, as a challenge or an offense to the legitimate authority of governments, but rather as a partner to promote and protect universal human rights and as an accountability mechanism established by the states themselves. As for the commission, he stressed the importance of preserving its independence from political pressures and safeguarding its autonomy. I would like to highlight a notable and enduring example of President Carter's leadership and support for the commission's work. And I'm referring to the assistance provided by his administration to the historic visit to Argentina in 1979. I'm pretty sure Mr. Juan Mendes will also be speaking about that in greater depth. The report that came out of that visit documented a systematic pattern of forced disappearances. The commission cited planned and stand detention centers met with dozens of detainees and reported to the international community on the violations occurring in that country and especially forced disappearances, which were repeatedly denied by military authorities. The commission's intervention was key to saving the lives of many people who had been illegally detained and were in danger of being forcibly disappeared. I want to believe, and I think we all think, that the commission's visit was the result of the tireless work of victims' relatives and human rights organizations, human rights defenders, but also of the pressure exerted by the Carter administration. The U.S. State Department and the Secretary for Human Rights, Mrs. Patricia Derian visited Argentina. We heard about that already this afternoon. And shortly thereafter, the U.S. Parliament, Congress, passed the Humphrey Kennedy Amendment, limiting arms sales and foreign aid to countries ruled by dictatorships. That visit, the visit of the commission, had an enormous impact on the Argentinian society and on the hemisphere and was one of the factors that contributed to the fall of that dictatorship. This represents but one example of the Carter administration's support for democratic transitions. I would also like to note that it was under President Carter's administration that the United States signed the American Convention on Human Rights, the principle human rights instrument within the inter-American system. While all members based on the O.S. Charter are subject to the actions of the commission, its statute and the American Declaration on Human Rights, only those that have ratified the American Convention on Human Rights obliged to respect the decisions and the judgments of the inter-American court on human rights and those who've accepted the jurisdiction under that convention. So President Carter continued to promote U.S. ratification of the convention throughout his public life, stressing that universal participation in our hemispheric human rights bodies would affirm and strengthen our democracies, commitment to the protection of human rights. And that is why today, more than 45 years after the signing of the convention by the United States, I want to take this opportunity to call on the ratification of this and other important inter-American human rights instruments, thus honoring not only President Carter's legacy, but the historic commitment of the United States to the defense of human rights in our region. As a human rights defender myself, I take inspiration from his lifelong commitment to be a voice for the disempowered and an ally of historically marginalized groupings seeking justice and freedom in the United States and around the world. I also want to recognize his life and love partner in this work, Ross and Carter. In an address in 1980, President Carter said this, and I quote, the desire for freedom and justice is the most powerful force in the lives of suffering people. We must recognize their plight, expose the human rights crimes, rescue victims from their oppressors and let them join us in sharing the benefits of the rule of law that provide justice and lives of quality and peace. These are words to live by. These are our collective moral obligations. Let's all do it together. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much for brought on. Let's move on to Mark. We could feel free to sit or stand, whatever you'd like. I'll come over here. Thank you very much. My real appreciation for this goes beyond USIP and the OAS and the Carter Center. It goes to President Jimmy Carter. He and the, those he named to the State Department, Secretary Cyrus Vance, Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher, gave me the opportunity to serve as the first Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the first Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. And it also gave me a chance to work with a truly remarkable woman, Patricia Darian. Pat had an unerring moral compass and she had the determination and courage and skills to pursue that compass, come hell or high water. And over the course of the time that I was in the State Department, I think it's important to recognize that what President Carter did was he formalized human rights as a fundamental element of US foreign policy. Prior to that on the Hill, you had Don Fraser, Ted Kennedy, others who introduced legislation and pushed human rights. It was bipartisan and it also represented non-governmental concern in the religious community and others that US policy simply was not reflecting US values and come out of the Civil Rights Movement, opposition to Vietnam and the belief that any kind of support for military dictators was simply contrary to our interests and to our values. And what he did was he transformed that movement into a sustainable element of US foreign policy. Not the only goal of foreign policy but a far, far higher priority than ever before. In Latin America, President Carter's message put the United States on the side of the victims of human rights abuse, not the governments. No longer would we be silent when there was torture or disappearances, extra-judicial executions. And that difference was felt in the region. Let me just give you some of the impacts. During that time period, the Carter administration was seen as supporting democratic change in countries like the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru after a decade or more of military and authoritarian rule. The United States ended its support for Samosa late but it ended it. Brazil restored habeas corpus, loosened its strengths on the press and amnesty was issued to allow exiles to return home. Before the Carter administration, the United States simply was not seen as supporting democratic change in the region. Under Carter it was and that made all the difference. Just let me give you two examples. The deputy secretary asked me to lead an investigation in El Salvador into reports of massacre in rural El Salvador. The government had blamed the massacre unleft us. The State Department delegation went there and found that the military itself had carried out the killings. And when we went back, the Christopher committee ended all aid to El Salvador's government. And not just the region but other parts of the world as well. And we may forget, but the victims of human rights abuse, those political prisoners I saw in Chile or welcomed here after they were paroled into the United States or the advocates that we helped escape assassination in Guatemala. They remember and when they become, as they have, presidents or judges or ambassadors, they remember and it changes the way they view the United States. The difference between the Carter administration and the predecessors is most viscerally seen in the attitude towards Pinochet's Chile. In the last OAS General Assembly, the secretary Kissinger attended in Santiago. The declassified cables now show that he congratulated Pinochet for overthrowing the Allende regime, the Allende democratically elected government. Three months later, Orlando Latelier and his assistant, Ronny Carpenter and Moffatt, were assassinated in Washington, DC. The distinction was clear. The Carter administration treated Pinochet as a pariah, ended all aid, undertook an investigation that found that the Chilean secret police had carried out the Operation Condor that carried out the assassination. We indicted the head of the Chilean secret intelligence agency, Manuel Contreras, and six others. We convicted those who directly perpetrated the assassination. Carter's action and public condemnation of everything that Pinochet stood for was understood throughout the hemisphere, not just in Chile, as representing a seismic change in the attitude of the United States. And as you've heard, perhaps the strongest impact was here in terms of the regional institutional structure. And let me just say that when the American Convention came into being, that also created the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. A fundamental change in the way that human rights was treated in the region. That convention's Article V, by the way, on the right to humane treatment was what was used then as a basis for delegates helping to create the international convention against the use of torture. In his farewell address, President Carter said, "'America did not invent human rights.' In a very real sense, human rights invented America. That was what he believed and that was his legacy." Thank you. Thank you so much, Mark. Juan, could I invite you to take your remarks? Either there or here. First, I want to thank the US Institute of Peace for this privilege, this honor of inviting me to speak on this occasion and with this great panel of speakers. And I hope you don't mind if I start at least with some personal remarks because I think many of the things that I could say are being said already and will be said by others. But I can't help but remembering that in 1976, I spent the whole year as a political prisoner in Argentina without charges and that that year was the height of the repression in Argentina with a campaign of disappearances going in full force through that year. And towards the end of the year, we had a glimmer of hope with the election of Jimmy Carter through the presidency in the United States because it was preceded by a campaign that very explicitly put human rights at the center of US foreign policy. And in that sense, the rest of the world, especially some European nations, also were emboldened to incorporate human rights as their concerns in dealing with military dictatorships and with other forms of repression around the world. But it was not just a campaign promise. In 1977, and I think it's November of 1977, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance went to Argentina and carried with him a list of 15,000 names of Argentine prisoners and disappeared persons that had been compiled under very difficult circumstances. But that represented a way of asking the military dictators to account for the fate and whereabouts of so many persons. And the reasons why so many, who like me, were saved from the phenomenon of disappearances, but we were held without trial or accusation sometimes. And in my case, it was only 18 months, but for most of the people I was staying with, it has been an average of four to five years, maybe even eight years. And it's not only that. Pat Darian also visited Argentina, I think, a year after that, and demanded information about the fate and whereabouts of Jacobo Timmermann, the journalist who later was recognized as being imprisoned and eventually freed. And of course, throughout the period, there was this insistence on accounting for the disappeared, explaining what had happened to so many Argentines, men and women who were among the disappeared. As you know, that concern remained for the full time. The State Department actually announced a reduction of military aid to Argentina because there was no action in explaining what had happened to the disappeared. And the Argentine military, you know, huffing and puffing decided not to take any military aid that year. But then Congress, and particularly the Senate, issued the Humphrey Kennedy Act that has already been mentioned. And that conditionality, in my mind, was what allowed the isolation of the Argentine dictatorship in the rest of the world and ultimately cut short this nightmare of repression that had happened in Argentina. And let me remind us all as well that the end of this, of that particular military dictatorship, and unfortunately we had more than one in the history, but it was, it inaugurated a period of more than 40 years now of democracy in Argentina. So all of those things contributed extensively to isolating military dictatorships. And of course the democracies that are then succeed, those dictatorships are not necessarily perfect democracies, but what I think is remarkable is that the citizens of many of these countries have incorporated human rights in their domestic struggles as well. And there's a remarkable consensus, even with different political identities in favor of human rights in the countries that were touched by the Carter human rights policy in those years. I want to mention also that the work of human rights was not only limited to these policy mentions that I made. On a daily basis during those years, the embassy, the State Department reported on human rights violations very accurately and very positively, particularly by the work of someone, many of us here, remember very fondly, Tex Harris, who unfortunately has now departed us. But those years I came to the States in 1977 and I met Mark at the State Department almost immediately after arriving here, but I was also surprised to see how the doors were open in Congress, in the Senate, and especially in the State Department, to people coming from Argentina to seek support for human rights in Argentina in the darkest hours of repression. Emilio Mignone and Augusto Conte McDonald, who I consider my mentors, but also the mothers and grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo would come here bringing news and seeking support. And the visit themselves created an umbrella of support for human rights defenders that otherwise would have made their life in Argentina very, very dangerous and difficult. Obviously there were others who, not every human rights defender was successfully protected in Argentina at the time or elsewhere in Latin America, but the fact that the United States was standing for human rights created the atmosphere for human rights organizations and human rights defenders to do their work in this fashion. And I was also impressed by the fact that when they came to Washington to explain what was happening in Argentina, they were also met by very sympathetic people in this city that were willing to help open doors for them, set up meetings, et cetera. And I want to recognize especially the Washington office of Latin America and it's a great pleasure to see its founder Joe Elbridge and Eric and Joey Olson present today here because Wala is still around, Wala is still fighting the good fight for human rights. And even though this, there have been many years since human rights was central to United States foreign policy, but I was myself a beneficiary of that atmosphere that was created because in my case, my American family that campaigned for my release from Argentina was able to get letters from Senator Ted Kennedy, but also from Senator Percy, for example, and from Republican and Democratic members of Congress alike. And it's sad to say that that's unthinkable now. It just wouldn't happen. And I just want to finish by saying that the Carter administration did not create the human rights movement. The human rights movement had existed for a long time, but it undoubtedly gave it a boost and a support that allowed the human rights movement to grow. And not only to grow in persons and in institutions, but also to grow and become more effective and more efficient in pursuing the goals of human dignity for all men and women around the world. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll now move on to Tom for our, please go ahead and in order to leave just a little bit of time for Q and A if you could be brief, that would be terrific. Thank you very much. Thank you. Since my encomium to President Carter is not unalloyed, I'd like to preface my remarks on the theme of this panel by saying that on the basis of President Carter's performance in the years after he left office and on the basis of a long private conversation that I and a number of other international lawyers had with him at the time of the founding of the Carter Center in Atlanta, I think that it's fair to characterize him as the most genuinely moral, most authentic believer in the rights of human beings since President Lincoln. He has no rival, it seems to me, in his humility and in his genuine moral sympathy and empathy. His term in office coincided with my first term as a member of the OAS Human Rights Commission. In fact, I was not nominated by the Carter administration. I was nominated by the Ford administration but actually began work at the same time as Carter entered the White House. And those four years that he was in the White House represented the high tide of the impact of the commission on developments in Latin America. And that was not accidental for all the reasons that Mark and Juan have expressed. We would never have been able to enter Argentina and conduct the 17 day onsite investigation which then led to the 350 page report which I delivered at the next meeting of the OAS General Assembly, which I think began the process of unraveling the military regime which led ultimately, as Juan pointed out, to the election of the, to a democratic election. And we certainly would not have been allowed by the Somoza government in Nicaragua, the Somoza dictatorship to enter the country in the middle of the civil war between Somoza's personal army, the National Guard and the Sandinista led rebels were not for pressure from the White House. And that was really the high tide of the commission in terms of actual consequences. It was striking that when Somoza resigned and fled to the United States and was asked why he had resigned since he hadn't lost militarily at that point, hadn't lost yet. He said that one of the two reasons was the report of the Inter-American Commission. But just as that represented the high tide of the commission's work, that is the most concrete resolution of its exposure of the behavior of a brutal dictatorial government. In a way, it also represented the low side of the Carter administration's work in the human rights field in Latin America because the United States had the power at that point in its history and in the history of the hemisphere to serve as the avatar of a new order in Nicaragua, an order that would involve the removal of Somoza. And the creation of a government mixing elements of the conservative business community and the radicalized students and others who had formed the Sandinista movement. And because of the president's refusal to exercise the power of the United States, the force, the earlier resignation of Somoza, and then to manage the creation of a hybrid regime, the National Guard collapsed. And the military field was left to the Sandinistas alone. The Sandinistas never expected to govern Nicaragua by themselves. And the United States could have integrated the Sandinista movement with the other elements in Nicaraguan society. And because the president was unwilling, the reasons we can explore in the brief discussion that we have time for was unwilling to use the full power of the United States to arrange, to mediate, and if necessary, to arbitrate the creation of a new order in Nicaragua. What followed was the Second Civil War, the Contra War. And ultimately, and ironically, the emergence of a dictatorship in Nicaragua led by one of the former Sandinista commandantes, which is as brutal and kleptocratic as the Somoza regime. So this was a tactical failure, but it reflected a certain view of how the United States should conduct its support for human rights, which was partially flawed. So in order to leave some time for discussion, I'm going to stop there, but only reiterating that there's no living American president I admire other than Jimmy Carter. He's a great man, even if he made serious mistakes as the president. Thank you so much, Tom, for that. We have approximately two and a half minutes left for our discussion. So let me just pose two questions and ask you to respond to one in 45 seconds if at all possible. I understand that's a very, very, very big ask. Perhaps for Professor Mendes and Commissioner, how would you identify or describe the evolution of U.S. human rights policy since the Carter years and what key elements remain, what key elements might be fortified, how have things changed and what do you recommend in that respect? And then maybe for Mark Schneider and Tom, what were the main obstacles faced by the Carter administration in promoting human rights in Latin America? How can these experiences guide policy members and maybe more specifically, how did Carter institutionalize human rights and related mechanisms within the State Department? And I understand those are all multifaceted questions, but please, any element of that you'd like to comment on, please go ahead and we can go ahead and start with you, Mark. Thank you. What's interesting is that what President Carter essentially did was he made the State Department incorporate into the way it did business the issue of human rights. By executive order, he created the Interagency Commission on Human Rights and Foreign Policy that Christopher Warren Christopher led and that considered all aid to any country that the Human Rights Bureau said had human rights issues and so they were considered in that venue. And in fact, it also was a way in which we incorporated the reports from groups like WOLA and other organizations into the information we brought to that committee. The other is that every bureau in the State Department was directed to name a human rights officer who was in that bureau. Every embassy in the region had a human rights officer designated within the embassy, all of which still continues in different ways. And it also, what the Carter administration did was it put the Human Rights Bureau at a corner office on the seventh floor. And that said something within the State Department. Thank you so much. Tom, anything to add to that or expand upon? What President Carter was perhaps unable, perhaps unwilling to state to articulate was that the problem in much of Latin America certainly in Central America was not simply the absence of democracy not even fundamentally the absence of democracy but profound inequities, structural inequities in the societies. These are more feudal societies than modern societies and that without radical change that's called without white revolutions as opposed to red revolutions, these societies might hold elections. They might be fair elections but the societies would not change fundamentally and they haven't. Thank you so much. Professor Mendes, anything to add on either point? The good thing was that the human rights policy as part of foreign policy did not die right after the defeat of President Carter because even though the new Secretary of State said that human rights would be at the bottom of the agenda or something to that effect in the Reagan administration's foreign policy, in fact the conditionality and the concern of Congress and the Senate remained for several years and forced sometimes even the Reagan administration to do sometimes the right thing on human rights grounds and recognizing that its allies had to be called for human rights violations. Unfortunately, over time the erosion did happen and for example the human rights reports of the State Department that were so useful for many years after the Carter administration nowadays don't even, I don't know if they're still published but if they are published, they don't gather a whole lot of attention anymore but the civil society movements that use that opportunity still do very good reporting and very good coverage of human rights violations and still ask US government but also other democratic governments to incorporate concerns about human rights in their foreign policy. I also think that it wasn't very important as it was said before that the Carter administration signed the American Convention on Human Rights and submitted it to the Senate, failed to ratify it unfortunately and then in the Clinton administration it was submitted again for ratification and again it failed and it's a real pity that the United States is not a party to the American Convention on Human Rights but the Reagan administration did sign and ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and the Convention Against Genocide which are important, not the only pieces but important pieces in the human rights framework. I also, well I'm sorry I'm taking too long but if you have a final point that's, or we could end any final remarks. Yeah, thank you very much. I think, I mean the ideological and the partisan polarization in this country and in countries all over the world is so extreme, it's hard to think about what that straight line is from the Carter administration to now but what I want to maybe end by saying is that I think his legacy is his life, his commitment to service and it's not an apolitical service, it's a deeply political service in the sense that he understood power inequalities and he used his voice to point those power inequalities out after he left the White House and he's continued to do that across his life and he was a person ahead of his time, he saw the interconnectedness of things, the environment, poverty, civil and political liberties, democracy, he saw all of that and he worked for that in his years after leaving the White House. Certainly well ahead of his time in so many different ways. Well, what a fascinating thought provoking and indeed, again, very timely discussion. Please join me in thanking our excellent panelists for this session. And I'll invite the panelists to walk offstage, right? It is my pleasure to... Yeah, it's my pleasure to welcome now Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdez former Chilean minister and ambassador to the US and the United Nations to provide some brief remarks on the fight for human rights and transition to democracy in Chile. Ambassador, welcome to the stage. Thank you very much. First of all, to the Institute, the US Institute of Peace for having me today. I hope that you will excuse the personal character of most of my remarks. This year is the 50th anniversary of the military queen Chile, the death of Salvador Allende and the end of a long democracy and the initiation of the dictatorship that lasted 17 years. Chileans have two ways of recalling the relationship between the United States and the tragic collapse of Chilean democracy. One is to remember Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Their participation in the disastrous slide of Chilean democracy towards its terrible end and the support they gave to a military regime that became a world symbol of the violation of human rights. The other is to remember the breath of fresh air, distancing and human rights principle President Jimmy Carter brought with him to the White House and the space he opened in our countries of South America for the defense of our essential rights and the creation of a political opposition representing a new hope of democracy and freedom. I do not need to say which is the memory of the United States that we prefer. I remember very well an evening in Washington DC in our apartment in McLean Gardens in October 76. I was at home listening to the debate between presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and then suddenly Carter said and I quote, one of the primary reasons of the deep hurt that's come to this country has been the military queen Chile. It seemed to me a miracle. I couldn't believe my ears. He was mentioning Chile. It is obviously un-American to interfere in the free political processes of another nation. It is also un-American to engage in assassinations in times of peace in any country. He said some days later, also referring to Chile. And then in his inauguration speech he proclaimed our commitment to human rights must be absolute because we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. He was referring to Latin America. It seemed unbelievable. Mind you, this was happening only a few months after Pinochet's agents had assassinated Orlando Letelier and Roni Moffitt in Suridan Circle. In that moment we, the Chilean friends and companions, Orlando co-exiles, were at the lowest ebb of our hopes. We felt threatened and insecure in this country. We had heard Orlando saying, they will never dare to kill me in the United States. And there we were, carrying his coffin out of San Matius Cathedral. Surely we had friends in this country. Thousands of friends, Chile and its disgrace, had been the moving force for the surge of an American human rights movement that extended all over the country. A movement conformed by friends we admired, people that were dedicating their lives to our cause. We felt their support and protection. We rightly saw organizations like WOLA and the National Council of Churches as a home and as a heaven. We also admired and were grateful for the friendship and support we received from extraordinary figures in Congress. Senator Ted Kennedy had been the first to raise his voice in defense of human rights in Chile. Senators Aburesk, Church McGovern, Senator Mondale, and then Congressman Tom Harkin, George Miller, Donald Fraser and Toby Moffitt, among others, had organized hearings in Congress, had traveled to Chile, and had denounced the brutality of torture and disappearances, the fear, the repression, the lack of freedom existing in the country. We trusted them, they listened to us. But we also knew that the government of the United States fully supported the dictatorship. We knew it because during that same terrible year of 1976, in July, Chile had been chosen as the site of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States. Secretary Kissinger has traveled to Santiago and had met Pinochet. Our friends in the movement and all of us in Washington and elsewhere, where the Chileans were organized, rightly suspected that whatever his references to human rights as in the OAS assembly, Kissinger's mission was to tell the dictator he could count on the support of the White House. Many years later, we confirmed it and I have to confess that each time I read the transcript, I find it more appalling. I quote, we want to help, not to undermine you, said Kissinger to Pinochet. We are very sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. The pictures and the text show an amiable and affable Secretary of State. Stern and Dark Pinochet listens in silence and when Kissinger finishes, remains in silence for a second and then utters just one phrase. Yes, but Valdez and Letelier continue to have great access to Congress. He leaves the idea floating for some second, Kissinger seems taken aback. Orlando Letelier was killed in September. Gabriel Valdez, my father, then at the United Nations was placed under FBI protection for a year. You can see now why Jimmy Carter's ideas and his electoral victory seemed to us a miracle. It was not simply a change in government. It was much more than that. It was not simply a change in foreign policy. It was much more than that. The United States seemed to us to have changed its identity. This was once again the country of democracy and freedom and to us, the deep values of solidarity and peace, of respect for diversity and democracy expressed by the solidarity movement which had made us Chileans admire and love this country. Now would be reflected in the government in Washington. Far from our feelings of happiness, the dictatorship felt it was in deep trouble. Only two weeks after the elections, Pinochet announced his decision to free 302 political prisoners and issued some decrees easing all the limitations on relegados political leaders in internal exile. The dictatorship its civilians supported, ideologues and its press had realized that something really important had happened. The United States would not accept any more the argument that somebody could be killed with impunity because he was a communist or a socialist. At the same time, the internal actors in defense of human rights were strengthened in their work. Harassment against the Catholic Church, its vicaría de la solidaridad and the lawyers defending prisoners decreased. In Washington, Mary McCrory, a journalist with sympathies to the Chilean cause, wrote he, Carter, has had a rather dazzling demonstration of how he can make tyrants quake. The question is, will he require them to do more? Now 47 years later, I understand the internal tensions that the Carter administration had to face when balancing its two principles in Latin America. The defense of human rights and at the same time, the respect for sovereignty of the nations of Latin America. What could be done to induce the military to establish civic freedoms? How could the priority for human rights be expressed without the opinions of intervention and destabilization? Chile was undoubtedly the most difficult case, as my friend, the late Robert Pasteur once wrote. While other US interests clearly must be considered in evolving policy options for Chile, none can take precedent over our human rights considerations. I remember the time we heard about internal debates in the administration. Padirian, whom we admired. Marx, neither our friend over whole life. Robert Pasteur didn't have necessarily the same views on these matters. And of course, we, the friends of Orlando, sided with those who wished for the application of the most drastic measures, particularly in reference to the Letelier assassination. In one year, the American government investigation of the crime had made significant advances. The assassins were identified and indicted. Request for extradition of the principal perpetrators was sent to Chile. As we confirmed much later, the CIA had evidence of Pinochet's direct participation in ordering the murders. The Supreme Court of Chile, the judiciary system of the regime, denied the extradition requests. Only one extradition was considered, that of an American national working for the regime's police. As always, the regime played the game of showing openness and conceding more freedoms. The terrorist security organization called DINA was dissolved and Pinochet decided to form another police organization under a different command. The US government decided to apply sanctions, including terminating all military sales and the Exim Bank would suspend its operations in Chile. Most people in Congress and in the movement thought that that was not enough. When looking at the past, these debates of the 70s do not seem as important as probably they seem then. What is remarkable is that the relevance the Carter administration conceded to our region and the centrality of human rights, particularly in South America, did not change later or better said could not be changed during other administrations like the one of Ronald Reagan. With the extraordinary change Jimmy Carter introduced in American foreign policy, as well as in the image of the United States, both in the hemisphere and in the world, the president opened the spaces needed by those Latin Americans and in our case by those Chilean leaders who had had the principles of human rights engraved as the essential doctrine of their concept of democracy. In political terms this meant that military dictatorship had to wane and democratic alternatives had to be allowed to organize and come to elections. The extraordinary impulse Carter gave to the concept of human rights undoubtedly created the first draft for the possibility of democratic transition in Chile. I should add for a democratic and peaceful transition in Chile. One last personal remembrance. In 1984 I went along with my father to President Carter's home in Plains, Georgia. My father was then the leader of the opposition and he had been in jail the previous year. We had lunch with President Carter, his extraordinary wife Rosalind and Bob Pastor in a very simple and family environment. It was the conversation of two leaders who did not need much to realize they had the same values and the same hopes for our countries. We were impressed by Carter's simplicity, naturalness and straightforwardness. That was the first time that I had the honor of visiting his home. I have been there four times by now. But of all these times I have been in Plains, this will be the one I will always remember the most. I finished this word saying that Chile continues to pay homage to President Carter. Today our President Gabriel Boric, a 36-year-old member of a new generation of Latin American political leaders, has given proof of his courage and honesty in putting human rights at the center of his foreign policy. He could also say, as Carter did in his inaugural address, our commitment to human rights must be absolute. Because we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for that fascinating and moving account. I am now pleased to introduce another short video produced by the Carter Center for this special occasion, which provides a brief overview of the origins of the Carter Center's Latin America and Caribbean program, and its mission to support democracy in the Americas, highlighting one of their earliest projects and election observation mission in Panama in 1989. The countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are our neighbors in the hemisphere. When they suffer, we suffer. When they prosper, we prosper. When they're stability in our neighborhood, they're stability for the United States. I'm Jenny Lincoln, director of the Latin America and Caribbean program at the Carter Center. The mission of the Latin American Caribbean program is to support democracy in this hemisphere. And one of the very first projects was an election observation in Panama in 1989, which put the Carter Center on the map for electoral observation. And President Carter stood up to Manuel Antonio Noriega. I called the election a fraud, and that was a dramatic, dramatic moment. I examined the documents myself in the presence of election officials. They were patently counterfeit. They had nothing to do with the actual documents that we had seen prepared the night before. Since then, there have been efforts to use this convening power of the Carter Center to bring together groups that have been in conflict, whether it has been political contention around elections or around different reforms. Recently, we've been working in Colombia. At the end of 2016, the government of Colombia and the Warring Factions FARC signed a peace accord to end a 52-year civil war. The Carter Center has been very active in helping with the implementation of this accord and was actually named by the negotiating parties as an institution chosen to help with this effort. The Carter Center has a long history as this President Carter with interest in Nicaragua, and now we've just undertaken a project to support political, electoral, institutional strengthening, not just voting, but also encouraging people and especially young people and women to participate, to be candidates, to put themselves out to be part of the democratic process. So it's very important to have a solidarity in this hemisphere, and that's why it's important for us to maintain this close relationship with our neighbors to the South. Well, many thanks to the Carter Center for producing that video. Our second panel and final panel of the day, of the event, is forward-looking. We'll consider the various means by which we can carry forward Carter's vision for inclusive democracy, addressing, frankly, what is a growing lack of trust in democratic institutions, not only in the Americas, but globally. Three new esteemed panelists join me for this discussion. Samuel Luis Navarro is a prominent businessman, that has also made notable contributions to Panama's diplomatic landscape, is special ambassador of Panama, and is a member of the advisory committee of the Panama Canal, the National Council on Foreign Affairs, and the board of directors at the Panama Canal Authority. He then, of course, later became first vice president and former minister of Panama. Secretary Marie Carmen Plata is the secretary for access to rights and equity at the OAS. She led the OAS Electoral Observation Mission in 2021 to St. Lucia. She formally worked on civil society and private sector engagement on public policies with a focus on gender equity and women's leadership and representation in government-regulated boards. She has also been involved in academic projects for the study and promotion of human rights, and was recognized by Chambers Diversity and Inclusion as a highly commended, excuse me, attorney for Central America. And then, of course, Dr. Jenny Lincoln has been the Carter Center's principal advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean since 2015. She has also been a credentialed international observer in 23 elections in Latin America, including five with President Carter, and two with the Organization of American States. We'll run this panel just as we did the first, and I'll hand the floor first to Samuel. Thank you, and thanks to everyone, USIP and everyone else, for allowing me to participate in this event where we recognize the legacy of one of the great statesmen of our times. I consider myself a very privileged person. One of the things that make me so privileged has been a deep and abiding friendship with President Carter and the Carter family. I first met President Carter in early 1977. As my father, Gabriel Luis Alindo, was having been appointed, Panama's ambassador to the United States was presenting his diplomatic credentials. An event that should have been a quick, protocol-ary photo op. However, characteristic of President Carter's personality, it became an immediate working session, calling the National Security Advisor and all his staff to the Oval Office in order to tackle the Panama Canal issue right away. What struck me the most in that occasion was his sense of decency, commitment to doing the right things based on deep-rooted values. For the purpose of this discussion, it might be difficult for me to be objective because, as Jenny and others in this room, I'm sure know I cannot separate my personal feelings of friendship with Jimmy Carter. However, looking at the Americas today, it is frankly painful to observe the serious challenges to democracy across the region. It is distressing to witness the democratic backsliding that has occurred in a number of countries, the weakening of democratic institutions, the polls that indicate a softening of citizen support for democracy, the chippening of political discourse, the blatant disregard for human rights and civil liberties and the rise of authoritarianism are just everyday events in our hemisphere. In that scenario, I believe it is important not just to reflect on President Carter's many achievements, but also, and perhaps more important, to see how we might use his legacy to renew a collective commitment to democracy. The thing is that when Jimmy Carter took office in 1977, the situation in the Americas was even worse than today, with only a handful of real democracies in place. At the end of his term, in just four years, democracies flourished in every country except one. This is a lesson that with the unwavering commitment for democracy and human rights of the leaders, it can be done. In the case of Jimmy Carter, this commitment was not only present during his term in office, but even stronger in his post-presidential work. Through the Carter Center, he became the most recognized voice in the region for fair and clean elections with all the effort for observation in many countries. Many cases come to mind, and some of them have been mentioned here, but in my case, there was no more clear commitment that that displayed in Panama in 1989, where at the risk of his own security, he denounced the blatant efforts by the Nordea regime to overturn the results of that election. He took principled stands to assure the integrity of other elections, including Nicaragua, Haiti, and Guyana. And in doing the right thing, there is no clearer example than the Panama Canal treaties. Since the original treaties for the construction of the Panama Canal in 1903, every generation of Panamanians had been fighting to recover full sovereign rights over our territory. More than 70 years later, Jimmy Carter saw that and moved forward at great political cost. This was a clear way to see the political courage of the men. As you know, the passage of those treaties was an uphill battle, and they passed by only one vote in the U.S. Senate. Today, the Panama Canal represents a major strategic asset to the United States in the hands of Panama. More than 6% of all seaborn trade in the world goes through the Panama Canal every year, and about 65% of all ships that go through are either coming or going to a U.S. port. In conclusion, as we look around the hemisphere today and witness the deterioration of democratic institutions, I think it's time to recover the democratic values and the human rights spirit of Jimmy Carter, the spirit that led him to lead dozens of election observation missions all over the world, the spirit to never shy away from the hard work of building democratic institutions, and that is the spirit of the man to whom we pay honor here today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for those excellent remarks. Dr. Lincoln? Thank you so much to USIP for hosting us today and for our partners that have joined with the Carter Center to provide a tremendous commemoration of the life and legend of Jimmy Carter. I want to especially be able to share with you that today the Carter Center, the family, the family of the Carters are following this commemoration, that yesterday the Organization of American States gave a tremendous declaration of appreciation for the life and legacy of President Carter and the Americas. Given President Carter's and Mrs. Carter's personal interests in the region, it's particularly meaningful for them and certainly for the Carter Center to see this outpouring of appreciation for their work. Your presence here and online is a gift to them in appreciation for that work. And for all of that, I thank you. When President Carter left the White House in 1981, he was 56 years old. He and Mrs. Carter were determined to continue their public service. They were a team and they founded the Carter Center. We've heard a lot about the Carter Administration and the legacy of his politics and policy in official policy ways. And now I'd like to turn the attention to the Carter Center. The two of them founded the Carter Center in 1982. It was to be a non-governmental organization with the tagline Waging Peace, Fighting Disease and Building Hope. This short phrase captures the essence of the mission of the Carter Center to support human rights defenders, to strengthen democracy, improve health, and engage in conflict resolution all over the world. President Carter's personal guiding principles laid the foundation for this non-partisan, non-governmental organization. One that is willing to take risks, to take on the difficult problems, I would say sometimes where angels fear to tread. One that is ready to work with partners and his quote to believe that people can improve their own lives when provided the necessary skills, knowledge, and access to resources. The Carter Center has become known in Latin America and the Caribbean for these activities and the personal attention and visits of President Mrs. Carter. Some of the activities are well known like the electoral observations. Other activities are the result of quiet diplomacy such as seeking the release of wrongfully imprisoned citizens or closed door negotiations for conflict resolution. I know that some of you listening here know exactly where and when these were but his priority was always to reach a positive outcome and not necessarily take the credit for it. President Carter has been a strong supporter of the Organization of American States for decades. As governor of Georgia, he hosted the General Assembly of the OAS in Atlanta. In 2004, he formed the group of the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a group of former heads of state, cabinet ministers, and human rights defenders to support the charter and its principles in the region. In recent years, he saw the Columbia Peace Accord and a 52 year civil war and bring more peace to the region. An example of where he pushed from behind the scenes with no needed fanfare. These thoughts bring me to a more personal side of this reflection on President Carter's legacy in the Americas. I was the Associate Director of Latin America and Caribbean program at the startup of the Carter Center with Robert Pasteur, who was remembered by many of you in this room. I returned to the Carter Center in 2015 and I've had the opportunity to travel with him, be in meetings with him, hear him as he approaches the good guys, the bad guys, the ugly ones, and to learn from him in action. Given that we are looking at his legacy for the significance of challenges for democracy and human rights today, I'd like to share a couple of lessons that I learned about him and from him that are very relevant today as we confront political polarization, disinformation, and democratic backsliding throughout the hemisphere. First, two things about him. As a boss, as a heffy, he set high expectations for everyone around him but never expected more of anyone else than he expected of himself. Second, failure is an option. He would say that to staff, meaning you must always try, you might fail, but the emphasis is you must try. Take the risk, things that, what I learned from him. One, negotiations are not a one-way street. Conflict resolution takes time, patience, communication, and a recognition that each side has interests, something to gain and something to lose. Second, things are not always what they seem to be. Make sure that you are open to all information, including information that even seems contrary to logic. Third, know your principles and stand by them. These lessons are very relevant for today as we confront democracy at risk in the hemisphere. Jimmy Carter is known as a man of peace. It's opportune to review his legacy for approaches to current times. In January, 2022, President Carter published a guest opinion piece in the New York Times in which he made a call for protecting democracy with these five warnings that are applicable today to the entire region. First, citizens may disagree on policies, but people of all political stripes must agree on fundamental constitutional principles and norms of fairness, civility, and respect for the rule of law. Citizens should be able to participate easily in transparent, safe, and secure electoral processes. Second, we must push for reforms that ensure the security and accessibility of our elections and ensure public confidence in the accuracy of the results. Third, we must resist polarization that is reshaping our identity around politics, and we must focus on core truths that we are all human and must resist the forces that divide us. Fourth, violence has no place in our politics. And lastly, the spread of disinformation, especially on social media, must be addressed. I joined the Carter Center the first time in 1989. While I was there then, we celebrated President Carter's 65th birthday. We had a party and he shared his Medicare card. Now, years later, the lessons, the life that he has lived is still such a valuable guidance for us as we face the challenges with human rights and democracy in Latin America. Thank you for the opportunity to share these reflections. I'll remind you that President Carter is 98 years old. Mrs. Carter will celebrate her 96th birthday in August, and they still, the life well lived, Roberta mentioned their legacy is their life well lived. It's a lesson for all of us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jenny. Secretary Plata. Thank you. I guess my reflections on the legacy will be a little bit different. I come from a family that was, the matriarch was a Mexican immigrant born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and a Panamanian, very nationalistic institutor. They moved to Panama in the 1950s. So you can imagine in December 31st, 1999, what almost a miracle like Ambassador Valdez was mentioning before, it seemed to my family that that debate would finally rest as to what would happen with the canal, finally, and we've heard where we are with that today. I'm not here to talk about the canal today. I joined the OAS, and in joining the OAS, I was informed that eventually I would learn about electoral observation. And this is part of the legacy as well, I think, because once you are part of the electoral observation process, you understand the importance, all of the elements that go into building a democracy, more than the technical aspects, more than the day itself, which I think was very important to President Carter, probably because of his own experience, but just the environment, the place where you're going to, the people that you're talking with, the people you sit down with and wonder how much of their experience has built a trust in their local institutions, in their political structure, in their candidates. So in that regard, I have to say that democracy, as we have mentioned here already, is facing very serious challenges and very different from what they faced back in 1962 when the OAS started observing elections. We've since then observed around more than 300 elections in the region, and we are not indifferent and we're not alien to noticing the shift in what observation and elections are today. The risks that Dr. Lincoln has mentioned very well and that were expressed very clearly by President Carter in his article earlier, is truly what now we have to reflect on and consider his legacy in building a new structure, in building institutions that collaboratively as the work that we have done from the OAS, together with the Carter Center, can really make a difference in what we are facing today, how we can take that legacy and rebuild our institutions into something that makes sense to the new generations coming in. How can we teach our children? How can we teach our younger generation that really it is worthwhile to give a vote of confidence to candidates? Because there are candidates that will come somewhere along the way, like Jimmy Carter did, and make an important difference in our lives and promote human rights and teach us a lesson that brings together human rights and democracy so closely that it really all comes together. And this, I think, is the big legacy and the big message that we take away at the OAS. I work in access to rights and I work very closely with the DECO team who works in the area of democracy. And you cannot separate one from the other. And this is, I think, for me, the biggest takeaway of all. At the OAS, all of the areas of the general secretary at work to promote and to consolidate democracy. That is in our DNA. It is the best option in our view to ensure peace, security, and development in our region. And we understand the importance of protecting electoral observation mechanisms and electoral observers, because that's another very important element. Electoral observers are human rights defenders at the core. They go on the ground before elections, during elections. They face great challenges. They continue to face a lot of misunderstanding as to what the role is. And it is part of all of our jobs to educate our communities, our countries, on what it is that they do. And ultimately, electoral observation is an accompaniment to the electoral process. Electoral observation is there to strengthen institutions, to work together with member states to ensure that whatever is being, all of the efforts that are being put in by such member states, by political parties, by all of the stakeholders, can continue to evolve into stronger institutions, into a stronger collective experience of what democracy is. And I think, ultimately, for us being here and sharing this space and being able to reflect on the legacy of President Carter, understanding his role in working together with the OAS and other institutions in the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation with such a strong component focused on human rights, is really a way to mark what the future can look like, where we need to go back. We need to understand the principle element of his legacy and bring that back into what are the challenges that we are facing today. And we have mentioned some of them. Just as Jimmy Carter's legacy is marked by his support for free, fair, inclusive, and credible elections in the hemisphere, so too have OAS missions consistently anchored the work of the OAS in promoting and encouraging democracy and human rights in the region. I think there's a lot to say, but I know that a lot has already been said and probably we can all benefit from a good discussion, so I will finish there and then we can perhaps go into some questions. Thank you very much. Good points. We have about five minutes left and so let me take the same approach that I did last time. I'll pose a couple of questions and feel free to respond to either or both in this case, but I think this is a particularly important question now, given the much wider range of very important economic actors that are present in the hemisphere in Latin America and indeed a class of global south and globally for that matter with very different views of human rights and governance. How did the Carter administration strike a balance between pursuing accountability for human rights abuses and maintaining strong diplomatic relations and what lessons can be drawn from that approach to inform current efforts? Obviously we're in a very different moment. As concerns, partnerships, trade-based and otherwise in the region, but is there anything that we can draw from from President Carter's particular approach to doing just that? And then as a second question, perhaps, unless we can find another Carter-esque figure to emerge and with the same qualities that so many have described here today absent that possibility, you know, what are our opportunities? This was mentioned by some of you and indeed in the previous panel, but for advancing inclusive democracies and then perhaps beyond that, what are we doing wrong? What missteps perhaps have you identified in our current efforts to promote human rights within the region, whether on a country specific basis or more regionally? And I'll leave it at that. And why don't we go in this direction this time? So, Marty, come in. Should hopefully be on night. Okay, yeah, perfect, thank you. I think I don't like to look back to criticize. I like to go forward. And I think that there are substantial changes in what human rights work can look like going forward. I think from our experience in the OAS and particularly in our secretariat, which is fairly new, we have seen a great will from member states to build their own path towards an understanding and incorporation of efforts in human rights into the work that we do. That is an evolution. The standards are there and the work that the Inter-American Human Rights System does is vital because it keeps progressing. It keeps moving the bar so that we can challenge ourselves to be better every time. But as we are able to sit back with member states and find where they are and work together with them, I connect this a little bit to because of the atmosphere that we are in. Again, the legacy of President Carter in terms of listening, understanding, and the principle of a dialogue that brings member states closer to reflecting on what is their drive towards more democratic institutions to more human rights. Their logo is more rights for more people. But it is important to have that space so that member states can really look in and reflect. And I think that was, for me, one of the big, I unfortunately have not had the opportunity or the privilege of meeting President Carter, but in reading and hearing his views, that to me is very clear. Promoting a dialogue that starts with active listening, understanding, and putting yourself in the other person's shoes is also a great takeaway. We can provide to member states in supporting them in the work in human rights. So I think that going forward, that type of relationship working together and collaboration in both democratic institutions as well as human rights can be a great tool and can be a great opportunity to promote more of a culture of human rights because that needs to go all the way from society to politicians, to leaders and throughout society. Thank you. Jenny? Very simply one word, engagement. On top of active listening, President Carter is someone who believed in engaging with, that I can think of the dictators that he has dealt with, finding the personal approach, trying to reach someone. So engagement, information, and attempting to find that simple, simple, common ground on which you can begin to build a relationship. Vice President? Undoubtedly, nations have interests. But those interests, pursuing those interests, especially in a multi-polar world as we have today, have to be based on principles. And those principles, you cannot move them around in order to pursue those interests. And I think that that is one of the lessons that President Carter leaves us on diplomacy and on the pursuit of the interests, not only of the United States, but also all the countries that adhere to these principles. And what we've seen, especially in Latin America, is as we led democracies flourish, prosperity took on in many of the countries. Unfortunately today, although governments are being elected democratically, some of them then turn around and start tweaking the rule of law, liberties, freedom, et cetera, that generate once again that need to again focus on democratic institutions on a permanent basis. So I think that not only the legacy of Carter in this regard is relevant today, but there is a need for that kind of leadership, indeed, at this time. Well, that's a perfect way to close out this panel. Please, please join me in thanking our excellent panelists. The panelists will exit this way. And as I understand it, Dr. Lincoln will close out the session with some final remarks. Thank you all so very much. And thank you, Margaret, for managing this, the panels and this information flow. Thank you all for being here. Again, thank you to USIP for hosting us. I also want to mention a very special person from the OAS Library, Rocío Suarez, has worked very, very diligently to put together an exhibition showing the legacy of President Carter in the Americas. We are privileged to have some of that on display out here at USIP. And on that note, I would just remind everyone that the reason we are celebrating the recognition of President Carter's legacy in the Americas is because he's a representative, his lifelong dedication to improving the lives of people, to struggling to find peace where peace is difficult and never, never shying away from the difficult challenges, gives us all inspiration to go forward after this panel. And thank you, Keith, for hosting us. And I hope to see you out here in the atrium. Thank you.