Brasilia Declaration on the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons in the Americas Brasilia, 11 November 2010 The Governments of the participating countries from the Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Gathered in the city of Brasilia to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the sixtieth anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the fiftieth anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness; Highlighting the contribution of the Americas to strengthen the protection of victims of forced displacement and stateless persons through the adoption of multilateral treaties on asylum, statelessness and human rights; Recognizing UNHCR’s work to promote international refugee law and guidelines on forced displacement and statelessness, as well as its supervisory responsibility in the field of refugees and stateless persons; Acknowledging the progress achieved in caring for and protecting refugees and internally displaced persons, since the adoption of the Cartagena Declaration and the Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees in Latin America of 2004, and addressing the new challenges presented by mixed migratory movements in various regions of the continent, as well as acknowledging the need to revitalize the search for durable solutions with the active participation of these populations, taking into account UNHCR’s new policy on refugees in urban areas; Reiterating the right of every person to seek and be granted asylum and the importance of the right to a nationality, enshrined in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man of 1948 and the American Convention of Human Rights of 1969; Reiterating our unrestricted respect for the principle of non-refoulement, including non-rejection at the border and indirect non-refoulement, as well as for the nonpenalization of illegal entry, and non-discrimination, as the fundamental principles of international refugee law; Recognizing with satisfaction that the existing domestic legislation on refugees and internally displaced persons of the countries on the continent has incorporated gender, age and diversity considerations to respond to the differentiated care and protection 1