Colombia
Expected Council Action
In January 2025, the Security Council is expected to receive a briefing from Special Representative and Head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia Carlos Ruiz Massieu on recent developments in Colombia and the Secretary-General’s latest 90-day report on the mission, which was circulated to Council members on 26 December 2024.
The verification mission’s mandate expires on 31 October 2025.
Key Recent Developments
On 24 November 2024, Colombia marked the eighth anniversary of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace concluded in 2016 between the government of Colombia and the former rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP). Secretary-General António Guterres, who was in Colombia for the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), emphasised in a 30 October 2024 press encounter that “this historic Agreement must remain at the centre of peacebuilding efforts” in the country. He welcomed the renewed efforts of Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego to accelerate implementation of the accord, including through the “shock plan” that the president announced during an 11 July 2024 Security Council meeting. Among other issues, Guterres also highlighted the importance of tackling violence through bringing state presence to historically neglected regions.
At the Council’s latest meeting on Colombia, held on 15 October 2024, Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia outlined six areas of focus for the “shock plan”. These include accelerating access to land and the implementation of the national plans on comprehensive rural reform as well as strengthening security, including for conflict-affected communities and former combatants. At that meeting, Ruiz Massieu welcomed the new momentum for implementation of the peace agreement. He voiced concern, however, that resources for “peace priorities” could be affected by fiscal constraints in the government’s budget in 2025 and expressed hope that efforts would be made to protect resources for peace implementation in the national budget.
The last quarter of 2024 saw some developments in the work of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP), the judicial component of the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition established by the 2016 agreement. On 13 November 2023, the SJP charged six former members of the last Secretariat of the defunct FARC-EP guerrilla group as the main perpetrators in Case 07 on the recruitment and use of children during the conflict. In addition to recruitment and use, the accused were charged with other war crimes committed against children, including torture, homicide, and sexual and reproductive violence. Human rights organisations welcomed this move, with some emphasising the importance of the ruling’s recognition of violence directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) children.
Signatories to the 2016 agreement continued to express concerns about the SJP’s work, urging the court to hand down its restorative sentences, among other issues. In a 2 December 2024 interview, the new president of the SJP, Judge Alejandro Ramelli—who took over the role from Judge Roberto Vidal on 6 November 2024—noted that the 15-year timeframe allotted for the SJP to conduct investigations is running out and indicated that once that happens, cases that the court has failed to investigate will be returned to the ordinary criminal courts. Rodrigo Londoño, the president of the Comunes party (which is comprised of former FARC-EP combatants), denounced the statement on 7 December, saying that it deviates from the 2016 agreement and that he would raise the issue with the Security Council. On that day, Ramelli issued a public letter, assuring that those appearing before the court will have the right to receive restorative sentences and to resolve their legal situation “as long as they assume their responsibility in a public manner and deliver detailed and exhaustive truth”.
The government also continued its dialogues with armed groups operating in the country as part of Petro’s “total peace” policy. The process with the guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) stalled in May 2024 following the government’s decision to hold a regional dialogue with one of the ELN’s regional fronts. Following the expiry of the ceasefire between the sides in August 2024, the parties held several meetings to try to solve their differences, to no avail. A further meeting is planned for January 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela. The ELN’s chief negotiator, Pablo Beltrán, reportedly said in late November 2024 that the focus is on making progress before Petro leaves office in August 2026, in order to “leave this process as consolidated as possible so that future governments can take it up again and continue it”.
The government also continued talks with some factions of the dissident group of the former FARC-EP that identifies itself as the Estado Mayor Central Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (EMC FARC-EP). This dialogue is more localised and is focused on finding agreement on the cessation of hostilities in a certain area in exchange for improvements in the situation of conflict-affected communities, including in their humanitarian conditions.
Between 9 and 12 December 2024, the Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict conducted a visit to Colombia. During the visit, Council experts met with officials from the Colombian government and from UN agencies, representatives of the SJP, and civil society representatives. In addition to meetings in Bogotá, the experts also travelled to the Caquetá, Cauca, and Norte de Santander departments, where they were able to see the conditions faced by children and young people, including lack of economic opportunities that make them more susceptible to recruitment by armed groups. It seems that the Council experts emphasised, among other things, the importance of involving UN actors such as UNICEF in the government’s dialogue efforts with armed groups operating in the country, in order to facilitate discussion and agreement on action plans to end and prevent violations against children.
Human Rights-Related Developments
Following his 5-15 March 2024 visit to Colombia, José Francisco Calí Tzay, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, submitted a report on 10 September to the Human Rights Council on the situation of the indigenous peoples of Colombia. Among other recommendations, the Special Rapporteur urged the Colombian government to enact appropriate legislation to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples enshrined in international law and the 1991 Constitution; engage in direct dialogue with indigenous peoples, independent of dialogue with non-State armed groups, with a view to building lasting peace; and adopt the necessary legislation and measures to recognise indigenous political, territorial, and environmental authorities and strengthen self-governance processes.
On 5 December 2024, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) concluded its 15-day visit to Colombia. The delegation emphasised the country’s “systemic shortcomings, including fragmented legal frameworks, institutional inefficiencies, and a lack of clarity about the actual number of disappeared persons”. Their preliminary findings revealed cases of tens of thousands of victims unaccounted for, forced recruitment, human trafficking and families left in despair despite decades of efforts to end this crime. The CED called for immediate and concrete actions, emphasising enhanced coordination between existing institutions, the need for sufficient funding and specialised staff, and strengthened accountability mechanisms as critical steps forward. It will publish a full report of its findings in April 2025.
Women, Peace and Security
On 30 November, the Colombian Ministry of Interior launched the country’s first National Action Plan on women, peace and security (WPS) pursuant to Security Council resolution 1325 of 31 October 2000. According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by the Ministry of Interior, more than 1,500 women took part over the course of the past two years in developing the plan, which seeks to promote the participation of women in decision-making related to peace, to guarantee their protection, and to facilitate their access to leadership roles. The plan has over 105 actions aimed at eight main objectives, including active participation, access to health, and economic autonomy. A total of 33 entities will reportedly be responsible for implementing these actions and a committee will be set up to monitor and follow up on the plan for the next ten years.
Briefing at the Council’s 15 October meeting, Beatriz Quintero, Co-founder of La Red Nacional de Mujeres (the National Women’s Network), emphasised the importance of the national action plan, noting that feminists and women’s organisations have campaigned for its adoption for years. She stressed that the action plan is “critical to bringing the total peace policy to fruition and must guarantee the participation of women and girls — in all their diversity — seen through a human security and feminist lens”.
Key Issues and Options
An overarching priority for the Council remains supporting the full implementation of the 2016 peace agreement. As Petro reached the half-way point of his term in office, Council members have increasingly emphasised the need to take concrete action to that end. This will become pivotal in the upcoming year as Colombia prepares for presidential elections in 2026. Members may wish to continue emphasising the importance of continued focus on implementing the 2016 agreement to the current administration and candidates in the elections.
Supporting transitional justice efforts in the country is a longstanding priority for the Council. Members have emphasised the importance of upholding the SJP’s autonomy on numerous occasions, including through their press statements on Colombia. They also have an interest in seeing the concerns about legal uncertainty with regard to those appearing before the court addressed. An option would be for Council members to interact informally in New York with the SJP’s new president, Ramelli. Such a meeting took place with Vidal in April 2024. This could help members get a better understanding of the challenges facing the SJP and to discuss the envisioned timelines for the handing down of restorative sentences.
Council Dynamics
Council members are united in their support for the peace process in Colombia and for the verification mission’s work. This was reflected most recently during the generally smooth negotiations on resolution 2754 of 30 October 2024, which renewed the verification mission’s mandate. (For more information, see our 30 October 2024 What’s in Blue story.)
The advent of five new Council members in 2025—Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia—may affect Council dynamics on the Colombia file. Panama succeeds Ecuador in the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) seat. Like Ecuador, Panama shares a border with Colombia and has an interest in the cross-border effects of the activities of armed groups in Colombia. For instance, the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC), Colombia’s largest criminal group, controls drug trafficking routes across the Darién Gap, a strip of jungle between Colombia and Panama that is also used by migrants seeking to cross into Panama on their way to the US. The government’s “total peace” dialogue efforts with armed groups operating in the country are therefore of interest to Panama.
Among the Council members that finished their term in 2024, Switzerland was closely involved in the “total peace” efforts, including as a guarantor country in the dialogue process with the EMC. It often advocated for a more proactive approach by the Council in supporting such dialogues. It remains to be seen whether any incoming or current Council member will continue to advocate for such a position.
| Security Council Resolutions | |
| 30 October 2024S/RES/2754 | This resolution renewed the mandate of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia for another year, until 31 October 2025. |
| Security Council Meeting Records | |
| 15 October 2024S/PV.9749 | This was the Council’s quarterly meeting on Colombia, held on 15 October 2024. |
