International Politics in Action 

How priorities and discourses in multilateral spaces could be used to establish successful strategies

In June 2025, the 55th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) was held. This year, the host country was Antigua and Barbuda. Nearly 10 years had passed since the last General Assembly was held in a Caribbean country (the Dominican Republic hosted in 2016), and more than 20 years since it was held in an English-speaking Caribbean country (Barbados hosted in 2002). Furthermore, it was the first assembly under the Secretary General, Albert Ramdin, elected a few months earlier, in March. Ramdin is the first secretary general of the organization from a country in CARICOM. Ramdin advocates for dialogue and joint work in the countries of the region and sustainable development that prioritizes awareness of the environment and climate change, a phenomenon that is particularly harmful to the Caribbean countries.

Multilateral organizations offer member states opportunities to position their priorities, interests, and international policies in a forum where this message is received by representatives of other states, members of civil society, organization staff, and others. Through speeches, discussions of resolutions, meetings, candidate nominations, and elections, states’ priorities and international policy styles become clearly visible. Analyzing these actions can enable human rights activists and defenders to develop effective strategies that are responsive to the context.

The positioning of discourses in multilateral spaces

One of the crucial points of this session of the General Assembly was the election of three commissioners to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, of which two were elected. The vote for the remaining position had to be postponed to a later date, due to a lack of consensus. One of the people who was elected during the general assembly was Rosa María Payá.

Payá is a dissident of the Cuban government and served as director of the Pan-American Democracy Foundation. Her candidacy was announced in March 2025. During the General Assembly, her government sponsor carried out an aggressive campaign in her favor, which resulted in her election in the first round. Payá’s discourse on democracy is directed squarely at leftist regimes– ignoring the risk that the far right poses to democracy in the region. After being elected, she published on her social media pages, “I was born into the longest and bloodiest dictatorship this continent has ever known. This tyranny has brought about the collapse of democracy in Nicaragua and Venezuela and has triggered the biggest migration crisis in our history.” 

The statements of the new commissioner reveal her vision and that of the political leaders and groups that supported her candidacy at its core, the problem of the political crisis in is…migration. This discourse overlooks crucial structural components of the situation in Venezuela: a weakened democracy, constant human rights violations, an economy in permanent crisis, and the repression of the people.

Payá was not the only one who focused on these issues in her speech. During the dialogue with civil society– During the first discussion at the general assembly, the following words were heard:

When […] transnational criminal networks facilitate or manipulate illegal immigration, the resulting chaos wears down communities, drains resources, and diminishes sovereignty. Each state has the right and the duty to secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws. In Nicaragua, the Ortega regime represses its own people, imprisons priests, and uses illegal immigration to destabilize our region. In Venezuela, the Maduro regime seeks to criminalize civil society, even penalizing economists for accurately reporting on the state of Maduro’s economy. (…) We will continue working with member states and civil society partners to defend sovereignty, uphold liberty, and ensure a safer Western Hemisphere for all. 

This rhetoric reveals relevant information about political positions, foreign policy and intergovernmental relations based on securitization, leading to the formation of alliances between countries who share similar positioning.  A few things are worth highlighting.

First, there is a strong emphasis on migration and border defense, as well as the classification of immigration as a destabilizing phenomenon; this is then also linked to  transnational criminal networks. This cannot be separated from the fact that Nicolás Maduro is being prosecuted in New York for alleged ties to drug trafficking.

This comes at a time in which we have evidence that there are mass deportations being carried out, transferring migrants to detention centers in other countries, which are not their countries of origin. This reveals that the strategy to “tackle migration” in the name of state security is not happening by the force of just one country, but rather, that it is a result of like-minded governments joining forces, and political and economic pressures to accept these policies. Furthermore, poor conditions in detention centers, unnecessary use of force by police officers, and a general  immigration policy focused on the criminalization of migration have been documented. According to this view, administrative infractions are treated as crimes—not just any crimes, but crimes that threaten the entire population and consequently warrant punishment that goes beyond mere detention or deportation, encompassing the loss of all legal guarantees and the stripping away of all human dignity. In this way, any necessary measure is normalized, accepted, and deemed reasonable. Under this paradigm, it is no surprise that the OAS represents a strategic space to promote this securitization and anti-migration agenda. The elections of the new commissioners means an opportunity to advance the narrative of migration as a phenomenon that harms communities and directly attributable to ideologically opposed governments, in the best style of the Cold War.

Democracy: the argument that justifies everything

The second point to note is the use of the defense of democracy as justification for intervention in countries of the region. It should be noted that Venezuela is not the only country on the continent where members and organizations of civil society are repressed, penalized, and even imprisoned. For example: in Peru, the APCI law was passed, which limits and imposes sanctions on freedom of association and the defense of human rights; in El Salvador, the Foreign Agent law imposes arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression and civil society organizations. However, Venezuela’s democratic shortcomings seem to be the only ones consistently highlighted. If this is understood in conjunction with the characterization of immigration as an activity of criminal networks, the discursive justification for their intervention becomes clear. It is precisely in this way that the armed attacks on boats (and the people who were in them) have been carried out since September 2025. Under the pretext that the ships were involved in drug trafficking, military attacks on civilians and their murder were justified without due process. These actions reached their peak, culminating in military attacks in Caracas and the removal of President Maduro.

If we go back to the positioning at the general assembly, we can sense a threat. It was a foreshadowing of what was coming, and how alliances would be solidified in order to allow intervention to be justified, excused and even celebrated by a few, with other countries paralyzed and fearing consequences for not joining this alliance.  During this general assembly, we could clearly see the international policy strategies of various countries and how these impact relations between states. It is a policy of aggression disguised as democracy and crime prevention. It is a strategy that seeks to validate acts of interference and human rights violations as a supposed measure to defend human rights. On the other hand, the nomination and election of Rosa María Payá demonstrate the not-so-hidden interest in imposing this agenda not only the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, but also the entire Inter-American System of protection.

Successful strategies must respond to the context

For activists to develop successful strategies, we must consider the context, utilize available information, and employ deductive and inductive reasoning skills to identify patterns, future actions, points of interest, alliances, and potential initiatives. Analyzing the behavior of States in multilateral dialogue and cooperation allows us not only to identify issues that could position a member state, but also the responses and reactions it receives.