In this agreement, the States committed to promote the full exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, including explicitly mentioning safe and quality abortion services in cases where abortion is legal or decriminalized in national legislation.
In this GC, the Committee focuses on the Covenant right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications (art. 15, para. 1 (b)), since this is the right most frequently invoked in relation to science. However, the purpose of this general comment is not limited to that right, but is also to elaborate on the relationship between science and economic, social and cultural rights in a broader sense. (Para. 3).
In this document, the States of the region decide to reaffirm "the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development as the basis for a comprehensive and strategic roadmap for national and regional action on population and development, which provides specific orientations and guidelines for the region in this area beyond 2014".
As stated in Paragraph 1, the purpose of this GC is to clarify the obligations of States parties in relation to non-discrimination and equality, as enshrined in Article 5 of the Convention. Specific reference is made in this GC to the guarantee of the right to sexual and reproductive health.
The Montevideo Strategy comprises 74 measures for the ten axes for implementation that are agreed upon at the regional level by the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, and which are subsequently adapted to the priorities and needs of the countries and inserted into the sustainable development plans, although they are applicable at different levels (national, subnational, local, regional and international). In this strategic document, the States Parties agree to define that ""The Regional Gender Agenda identifies agreements for gender equality and women's autonomy in relation to multiple issues that can be grouped into critical dimensions linked to human rights, and which, therefore, recognize women as subjects of rights and the States as guarantors of these rights, while ratifying their universal, indivisible, inalienable and interdependent nature: ii) Sexual and reproductive rights in relation to: information and comprehensive sexual education; safe and quality abortion services, in cases where abortion is legal or decriminalized in national legislation; contraception; integrated social health services; maternal mortality; sexual orientation and gender identity; universal and accessible services; disability and old age; eradication of pregnancy in girls, prevention of pregnancy and teenage motherhood; sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS; health emergencies; healthy motherhood; technological development; different types of families.
In this GC, the Committee elaborates on the scope of the Convention regarding the rights of adolescents, establishes standards for access to services and consent, and urges States to guarantee access to safe abortion and post-abortion care, and to decriminalize the practice.
In this GC, the Committee reports on the obstacles encountered by women and girls with disabilities in most areas of life, which generate situations in which there are multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination against women and girls with disabilities, particularly in relation to the ability to exercise control over their own lives in various contexts, for example, with respect to health care, including sexual and reproductive health services, and where and with whom they wish to live, and makes recommendations to States Parties in this regard.
The Montevideo Consensus is a milestone in the sexual and reproductive rights agenda at the regional and global level because it establishes the first definition of sexual and reproductive rights agreed upon at the intergovernmental level, and indicates a concrete regional agenda, a true roadmap with clear lines of action in addition to 130 points that recognize the need to establish accountability and follow-up mechanisms, as well as definitions based on the international human rights obligations of States.
In this GC, the Committee deepens the interpretation of the scope of the right to health, "from the perspective of the rights of the child, in the sense that all children are entitled to opportunities for survival, growth and development in a context of physical, emotional and social well-being to the maximum extent of their potential".
In this document there is a chapter that states that women's autonomy is an essential factor in guaranteeing the exercise of their human rights in a context of full equality and, in particular, that control over their bodies, their integral health and the right to a life free of violence (physical autonomy) is an essential factor in guaranteeing the exercise of their human rights in a context of full equality.
The law defines violence against reproductive rights as one of the types of violence.
It defines sexual and reproductive health attention, and also establishes comprehensiveness and interculturality as guiding principles.
The purpose of this law is to guarantee and ensure the effective exercise of the rights of persons with disabilities, through the adoption of measures of inclusion, affirmative action and reasonable adjustments and eliminating all forms of discrimination due to disability.
The States of the region adopted action agreements for the promotion of women's autonomy and gender equality, which include a specific chapter on "Promoting women's comprehensive health and sexual and reproductive rights" (Chapter 6).
This standard regulates issues related to information, counseling and services related to fertility regulation, in particular access to contraceptive methods, including emergency contraception.
Determines the inclusion of tubal ligation and vasectomy in Comprehensive Health Programs.
The Convention is the first legally binding international instrument that obliges states to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities in particular. The Convention covers many areas where barriers may arise. It also seeks to reduce stigmatization and discrimination, which are often among the reasons why people with disabilities are excluded from education, employment, health and other services.
The purpose of the Law is to regulate the actions that allow the effective fulfillment of the universal right to health as established in the Political Constitution of the Republic and the law. It is ruled by the principles of equity, integrality, solidarity, universality, unrenounceability, indivisibility, participation, plurality, quality and efficiency; with a rights-based, intercultural, gender, generational and bioethical approach. (Art. 1)
This law establishes that all persons of legal age have the right to have access to the performance of the practices called ""tube ligation"" and ""vasectomy"" in the services of the health system. (art.1)
In this ruling, the Constitutional Court declared justified the demand for compliance against the Ministry of Health, in order to comply with Ministerial Resolutions N 465-99 SA/DM and 399-01 SA/DM, which guarantee the provision and information on the emergency oral contraceptive (EOC) in all establishments under its charge, and order to comply with its obligation to inform and distribute the Emergency Oral Contraceptive Pill free of charge.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child elaborates and deepens the content of the Convention in relation to adolescent health and development.
This law establishes the framework for the enactment of regulations on equal opportunities for women, and establishes that sexual and reproductive health policies will be implemented, with emphasis on women with disabilities.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted unanimously by 189 countries, is an agenda for women's empowerment and took into account the key global policy document on gender equality. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action sets out a series of strategic objectives and actions for the advancement of women and the achievement of gender equality, including the link between health and women (UN Women).
The Program of Action is a milestone, particularly because it establishes the unbreakable relationship between population and development within the framework of human rights. It also presents the first globally agreed definition of reproductive health and rights.
The agreement signed by the States of the Region mentions reproductive rights and establishes programmatic and strategic measures to guarantee them.
The Timeline of Legal Milestones on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Latin America is a virtual tool that provides a chronological and organized overview of the normative development related to the enforcement of sexual and reproductive rights in the Latin American and Caribbean region at the international, regional, and national levels. This is achieved through the identification of legal milestones that have taken place from 1994, when the V World Conference on Population and Development introduced the first agreed definition of reproductive rights, to the present day. This timeline is a dynamic tool that we aim to keep updating as new legal frameworks emerge.
The timeline was created in August 2022, with the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Montevideo Consensus in mind. This consensus, which was reached at the First Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2013, is a significant milestone in the sexual and reproductive rights agenda at the regional and global level because it established the first definition of sexual and reproductive rights agreed upon at the intergovernmental level, and set out a concrete regional agenda with more than 130 clear guidelines for action. The consensus also recognized the need to establish accountability and monitoring mechanisms, and to base definitions on the international obligations of human rights states.
Progress in the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights has been reflected in various international agreements, treaties, protocols, declarations, and conventions, which compel states to implement public policies for effective attention to these rights. These regulations often engage in dialogue, reaffirm the validity of the objectives and goals set, support national legislative reforms and result in concrete plans and programs that allow for the effective exercise of rights. The timeline makes it possible to visualize how these international, regional, and national legal advances are interconnected. It also provides a repository of the full texts of the legal milestones included.
The initial design and creation phase of this Timeline took place between August 2022 and November of the same year, when the first Spanish version was released. In May 2023, we launched a new version of the Timeline, in which we included its English translation and added representative photographs, sourced from personal and public archives, institutions, and prominent photographers from the Region, illustrating the various legal milestones that make up this Timeline.
The authors of this work in Spanish were Edurne Cárdenas and Natalia Segura Diez, who were responsible for designing the methodology, as well as identifying, systematizing and categorizing the legal milestones that make up the content of this Timeline.
The authors were supported by the CLACAI’s Legal Network Coordination team (Agustina Ramón Michel and Dana Repka) and received the valuable review of Carmen Cecilia Martínez López (Centro de Derechos Reproductivos) and Mirta Moragas Mereles (Esar).
The programming and visualization design of the legal milestones were made possible thanks to the collaborative work of Sergio Arriscal and Alejandro Sanchez Menendez.
The search, selection, and curation of the photographs that were incorporated into the various legal milestones of the Timeline were overseen by a team of photographers and art curators, consisting of Anabella Museri, Julieta Escardó, and Andrea Weber.
The English translation of the Timeline and its methodological document was done by Angélica Sánchez.
The periodic update of the legal milestones of this line is now in the hands of Donatella Zalloco and Dana Repka.
To compile this information, a desk research was conducted using the official web pages of the aforementioned international organizations, as well as the resources listed in the Annex at the end of this document. In a second instance, national regulations were surveyed, using official bulletins and newspapers, as well as other resources available for the search of public information, through the use of key words in virtual search engines.
In each of the search engines, the keywords used were: "sexual rights", "reproductive rights", "reproduction", "contraception", "pregnancy", "obstetric", "abortion", "gender identity", and "childbirth".
The collected information was compiled in a database whose fields made it possible to classify and systematize the information that feeds the Timeline.
Firstly, it is important to note that this timeline focuses on “legal milestones”, which are identified as changes in the legal status of the rights that are the object of study, including the approval of treaties or laws, as well as significant jurisprudential advances. In this sense, the purpose of this timeline is to identify and display information related to normative advances, which is why public programs and policies were not included.
Regarding geographic delimitations, this project collected normative advances at the international, regional, subregional, and national levels, but information on state or provincial norms was not included.
To select relevant legal milestones, the definitions and thematic axes outlined in the following sections were considered.
The first definition of sexual and reproductive rights agreed upon by States is the one set forth in the Montevideo Consensus: "Considering that sexual rights and reproductive rights are embraced by human rights and that their exercise is essential for the enjoyment of other fundamental rights and for achieving the international development targets and poverty eradication". This agreement was adopted on the first meeting of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Montevideo in August 2013, under the theme "Full integration of population dynamics into rights-based sustainable development with equality: key to the Cairo Programme of Action beyond 2014".
The definition of reproductive rights, meanwhile, was first agreed upon at the IV World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995: "Reproductive Rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international laws and international human rights documents and other consensus documents. These rights rest on the recognition of the basic rights of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health".
This definition follows up on what was agreed the previous year at the Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, where the States strongly agreed on the indissoluble link between population and development issues and human rights, and reproductive health as part of them. At this Conference, the States agreed on a common political definition of sexual and reproductive health, which is understood as the general state of physical, mental and social well-being in all aspects related to the reproductive system. This definition implies the capacity to enjoy a satisfying and safe sex life and to procreate, and the freedom to decide whether, when and how often to do so. Thus, the idea that reproductive health is essential for the enjoyment of other fundamental rights and for achieving international development and poverty elimination goals was settled. The States committed themselves to the implementation of legislation, policies, and plans to achieve this purpose.
The definitions, frameworks, and guidelines adopted in the aforementioned conferences and their subsequent review processes were cemented by the new major global consensus on a sustainable development agenda for 2030, adopted in September 2015.1
Human rights protection bodies have also contributed to the understanding of the elements and scope of sexual and reproductive rights. Thus, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) outlined the right to sexual and reproductive health in its General Comment 22 (2016). It established in Article 12 of the Covenant that "The right to sexual and reproductive health entails a set of freedoms and entitlements. The freedoms include the right to make free and responsible decisions and choices, free of violence, coercion, and discrimination, regarding matters concerning one’s body and sexual and reproductive health. The entitlements include unhindered access to a whole range of health facilities, goods, services and information, which ensure all people full enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health [...]" (E/C.12/GC/22, Paragraph 5).
Moreover, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has stated in its General Recommendation number 35, referring to gender-based violence against women, that: "[...] Violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, such as forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, criminalization of abortion, denial or delay of safe abortion and/or post-abortion care, forced continuation of pregnancy, and abuse and mistreatment of women and girls seeking sexual and reproductive health information, goods and services, are forms of gender-based violence that, depending on the circumstances, may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" (CEDAW/C/GC/35, Paragraph 18).
To outline the scope of this project, we have used the definition and contents outlined in the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development (2013) and its Operational Guide (2015) as a guide, as it is one of the most comprehensive and forward-looking sources available.
The Montevideo Consensus, in addition to providing the first agreed definition of sexual and reproductive rights, as mentioned above, has a specific chapter on access to sexual and reproductive health, where sexual and reproductive rights are recognized as an integral part of human rights that contribute to the "full fulfillment of people and social justice" (MP 33), which places Latin America and the Caribbean in an avant-garde position in terms of recognition of rights (ECLAC, 2015). In addition, it constitutes a fundamental guide for the revision process of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, adopted in Cairo in 1994.
This chapter covers fourteen priority actions related to:
This highly comprehensive characterization also has a diversity, intergenerational, multicultural, and cross-cutting approach. Indeed, this chapter is related to other chapters of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, including Chapter B on the rights, needs, responsibilities and requirements of girls, boys, adolescents and youth, Chapter F on migrants, Chapter H on indigenous peoples and Chapter I on Afro-descendant populations.
Within this broad conceptualization of sexual and reproductive rights is priority action 37, whereby States agree to "Guarantee universal access to good-quality sexual health and reproductive health services, bearing in mind the specific needs of men and women, adolescents and young people, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons, older persons and persons with disabilities, with special attention to vulnerable persons, persons living in rural and remote areas […]”
The described framework guided the selection of legal milestones at the international, regional and subregional levels, identifying decisions that constitute state commitments in the area of sexual and reproductive rights. In line with this approach, we reviewed agreements adopted at world conferences, such as the World Conference on Population and Development and the World Conference on Women, regional bodies, such as the Regional Conference on Women and the Regional Conference on Population and Development of Latin America and the Caribbean, and resolutions adopted at the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, and subregional decisions, such as those adopted at the MERCOSUR Common Market Council (Consejo del Mercado Común del MERCOSUR, or MERCOSUR Council).
Initially, reports by special rapporteurs, independent experts, and working groups were not included, as they are not direct sources of state commitments, despite their importance for examining, monitoring, advising, and reporting on human rights issues affecting vulnerable groups.
However, we made exceptions for two rapporteurships reports: the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (2011) and the Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (2013), because they address key issues that contribute to the normative development of sexual and reproductive rights. In the first case, the rapporteur examines the interaction between criminal laws and other legal restrictions related to sexual and reproductive health and the right to health. In the second, a number of commonly reported abusive practices in health care settings are addressed and the link between the prohibition of practices such as abortion and torture is exposed. Additionally, we included the First Hemispheric Report on the Implementation of the Convention of Belém do Pará of the Follow-up Mechanism of the Convention (MESECVI).
Furthermore, we identified significant documents from human rights protection bodies of both the regional system and the universal human rights protection systems, including recommendations and general observations of treaty bodies, individual case decisions regarding cases from the region issued by United Nations treaty bodies, case decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and in-depth decisions and thematic reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
At the national level, we used the conceptual framework provided by the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development (2013) and its Operational Guide (2015) to guide the topics to be covered in the collection of information, including:
For length reasons, the methodological decision was made to prioritize these topics over others such as Comprehensive Sex Education and Sexual Orientation, which, although they are undoubtedly fundamental elements of sexual and reproductive rights, have their own normative development that exceeds the limits of this project.
The timeline is oriented vertically, which allows for international and regional milestones to be displayed in parallel on the left margin of the screen, while national milestones are shown on the right margin.
Each entry includes a description and thematic labels that engable the identification of the main topics addressed by the milestone.
In each section, the available buttons provide access to the relevant paragraphs, as well as to the repository where the full text of the source document is available.
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015). United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/69/315).
ECLAC (2013) Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development. First meeting of the Regional Conference on Population and Development of Latin America and the Caribbean.
ECLAC (2015) Operational guide for implementation and follow-up of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development. Second Meeting of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016) General Comment No. 22, on the right to sexual and reproductive health (article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) (E/C.12/GC/22).
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2017) General recommendation number 35 (CEDAW/C/GC/35).
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) Fourth World Conference on Women.
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (1994). Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.
See A/RES/69/315. Sustainable Development Goals 5.6: Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.