Although a number of UN sessions have been postponed or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to engage relevant human rights mechanisms including through statements issued in collaboration with other civil society organizations. An overview of these joint statement can be found below. This page will be updated to include new statements as they become available.

In our second statement on the COVID-19 pandemic we focus on poverty and environmental justice as two key issues that illustrate the need for global governance, international cooperation and solidarity, concerted and coherent action, and a systemic change.

Civil society raises human rights concerns during informal virtual conversation with the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

As we, the entire staff of Franciscans International, are confined but healthy in our respective homes in Switzerland, the USA, and France, we are made more aware every day of our privileged situation, despite the unusual and uneasy circumstances in which confinement is putting us.

Two years before his death, Francis of Assisi wrote the ‘Canticle of the Creation’, praying tribute to the diversity yet interconnectedness he had come to see in the world around him. This song, which would inspire Pope Francis’ Laudato Si, praises water as “so useful, lowly, precious and pure.” In this contradiction he recognized water as a resource that is both a daily commodity and fundamental to sustain all life which must be protected...

Throughout the session, we’ll publish our statements as they become available. So far, Franciscans International has delivered statements on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Brazil, and El Salvador as well as on climate change and business and human rights.

FI stands in solidarity with victims in Brazil as they continue to advocate for accountability at the one-year commemoration of dam collapse.  

In 8 years, the Franciscan “La 72” shelter in Mexico has welcomed over 90,000 migrant feet. Fr René, OFM reflects on the uniqueness of all those who visited to find reprieve and a safe haven.

After events in Geneva and Rome, the International Board of Directors of Franciscans International came together in New York, where the organization was first established.

The International Board of Directors (IBD) of Franciscans International and representatives of our staff recently met with Secretary-General António Guterres in New York, marking 30 years since the organization was officially recognized by the United Nations.