Colombia
Expected Council Action
In January 2026, the Security Council is expected to hold its quarterly meeting on Colombia. Special Representative and Head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia Miroslav Jenča will brief on recent developments and the Secretary-General’s latest 90-day report on the mission (S/2025/849), which was circulated to Council members on 26 December 2025 and covers the period from 27 September 2025.
The verification mission’s mandate expires on 31 October 2026.
Key Recent Developments
On 26 November 2025, Colombia marked the ninth 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). This milestone comes amid a complex environment for the implementation of the peace agreement and the UN’s support for the process, against the backdrop of the electoral period in Colombia and a recent modification of the verification mission’s mandate.
On 31 October 2025, the Security Council renewed the verification mission’s mandate for another year through resolution 2798, which received 13 votes in favour and two abstentions (Russia and the US). The resolution removed two tasks that had been previously assigned to the mission: verification of compliance with the restorative sentences handed down by 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—as well as monitoring implementation of the agreement’s ethnic chapter. The negotiations on the mandate renewal were the most difficult since the verification mission was established in 2017. The US demanded the removal of these tasks, apparently conveying its readiness to veto the verification mission’s mandate if they were maintained, while most other Council members strongly advocated for their retention. (For more information, see our 30 October 2025 What’s in Blue story.)
Jenča emphasised in a 4 November 2025 interview the importance of the renewal of the verification mission’s mandate to carry out the tasks on monitoring implementation of the rural reform chapter, the reincorporation of former FARC-EP combatants, and personal and collective security guarantees. He added that ethnic communities are relevant to all these provisions and therefore the mission will “continue working with ethnic groups…now without some of the spaces that Security Council resolution 2798 took away from us”.
The removal of the mission’s task relating to the SJP came shortly after the Court announced in mid-September 2025 its first restorative sentences. (In accordance with the peace agreement, those who acknowledge responsibility for crimes committed during the conflict will receive restorative sentences aimed at providing redress to victims, while those who refuse are subject to the Colombian penal code and may face imprisonment of up to 20 years.) International interlocutors had anticipated the handing down of sentences to begin as far back as 2021; in that year, the Council expanded the verification mission’s mandate through resolution 2574 of 11 May to verify compliance with the restorative sentences.
In a 31 October 2025 statement, the SJP said that although the Council’s decision presents certain challenges, it will not jeopardise the Court’s ability to verify compliance with the sentences it hands down. In this regard, the statement noted that the SJP, in cooperation with the verification mission, has developed over the past few years “a rigorous mechanism that combines fieldwork with advanced technology” to record information that can confirm the carrying out of activities decreed by the restorative sentences, including the search for missing persons and humanitarian demining.
As reflected in Council members’ statements after the adoption of resolution 2798, the majority of the Council continues to support the full implementation of the 2016 peace agreement. Resolution 2798 requests the Secretary-General to ensure coordination and efficiencies, including by ensuring that other activities in the country are carried out by the most appropriate UN system entity. This provision alludes to other UN entities potentially having a role in efforts relating to the tasks removed from the verification mission’s mandate. Some early discussions have begun in this regard, including in a 6 November 2025 meeting between the SJP’s President, Judge Alejandro Ramelli, and representatives of the UN system in Colombia.
The SJP continued advancing its work in the last quarter of 2025. On 19 December 2025, the Court concluded its first transitional adversarial trial, imposing a sentence of 20 years in prison on a retired colonel, after he denied his responsibility and was found guilty of killings and forced disappearances presented as combat casualties during the conflict.
With eight months remaining in the term of Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego, which ends in August 2026, his administration continues to take actions and decisions relevant to the implementation of the peace agreement. In November 2025, the government announced that it will elevate the Peace Implementation Unit to the category of a Presidential Advisory Office. This decision came after Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a ruling in September 2025 determining that the entity currently overseeing implementation of the 2016 peace agreement “lacks the independence, resources, and political clout necessary to fulfill its mission”, which has prevented it from guaranteeing the security of signatories to the agreement, among other things. Signatories to the peace agreement have been advocating for at least two years for the establishment of such an office and for the appointment of a high-level official to oversee implementation.
Also in November 2025, the government secured Senate approval of a bill that extended the timeframe for implementation of the development programmes with a territorial focus (PDETs in their Spanish acronym) until 2037. (PDETs are a tool created by the peace agreement aimed at facilitating investments and enhancing state presence in regions most affected by armed conflict, poverty, and illicit economies.)
Violence remains a persistent challenge across various regions in the country. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that, between January and November 2025, 1.6 million people were affected by violence and armed conflict, triple the number from 2024. At least 148,000 people were confined and 93,438 were displaced in 2025, exceeding historical figures monitored by OCHA since 2008. The severe escalation in the north-eastern region of Catatumbo in January 2025 was a significant factor in the increased numbers, with the region accounting for one third of all people displaced nationwide. OCHA has also noted an increase in grave violations against children for the fifth consecutive year, with forced recruitment and use of children by armed groups in combat and support roles, particularly from indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, eroding community resilience. It has further warned of an escalation of attacks by non-state armed groups using drones and explosive devices.
Human Rights-Related Developments
At the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent presented a full report of its 15-24 May 2024 visit to Colombia. In the report, the Working Group provides an overview of the current legal, institutional, and policy framework and measures taken to prevent racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance faced by people of African descent in Colombia. Its findings highlighted that, despite the positive measures and noticeable efforts undertaken by Colombia, the prevalence of racial discrimination in the country persists and hampers the full recognition of people of African descent and their integration into society. At multiple levels, Afro-descendant communities, as the Working Group indicated, experience a lack of recognition, as they are often subjected to statistical invisibility by state institutions, met with structural barriers, including institutional racism, as well as denied full enjoyment of certain economic, social, and cultural rights.
Key Issues and Options
A key issue is how tasks no longer in the Council’s remit—verification of compliance with the SJP’s restorative sentences and monitoring of implementation of the ethnic chapter of the peace agreement—will be addressed. Member states that wish to support such processes need to take into account some considerations. For instance, the 2016 agreement envisioned a role for the verification mission in monitoring compliance with the sentences handed down by the SJP, but not for other UN entities. Therefore, approval from both signatory parties (the government and the former FARC) will be required in order to give other entities that role. Furthermore, many UN bodies in Colombia have experienced budget cuts in light of the UN’s liquidity crisis and will require additional funding to be able to undertake new tasks. Member states can seek to engage with relevant actors to address such issues bilaterally. These issues could also be discussed by Council members and other stakeholders in an informal interactive dialogue (IID), a closed informal meeting format that could allow for a frank exchange.
In a similar vein, OCHA highlighted in its 2026 Global Humanitarian Overview that humanitarian needs continue growing in the country while capacities and resources are diminishing. The potential spillover effects of the heightened tensions between the US and Venezuela may further compound the situation. (For background, see our 23 December 2025 What’s in Blue story.) Colombia already hosts nearly three million Venezuelan refugees and migrants, numbers that can grow if the situation in Venezuela escalates. At the meeting on Colombia in January 2026, some Council members can choose to call on donors to enhance their support for humanitarian efforts in the country.
As January’s meeting will be the last before the March 2026 congressional elections, Council members could emphasise in their statements the urgent need to use mechanisms outlined in the peace agreement, such as the Comprehensive Security System for the Exercise of Politics (SISEP), to facilitate the secure conduct of elections. They can also encourage the government to continue prioritising implementation of the peace agreement in the remainder of its term, including by putting in place structures that can help facilitate continuity in the next administration, such as elevating the entity in charge of implementation to a presidential office.
Council Dynamics
Colombia had previously been considered a file that enjoyed Council consensus in support for the peace process and for the verification mission’s work. However, the strains in the bilateral relationship between Colombia and the US since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 have created significant challenges in the Council’s engagement on the file. (For background on the deteriorating bilateral relationship, see the brief on Colombia in our October 2025 Monthly Forecast.) These difficult dynamics were evident in the contentious negotiations on resolution 2798, and in the fact that Council members have not adopted any press statements on Colombia in 2025, although it had previously been the practice to do so after every quarterly meeting.
The recent developments could also signal future difficult dynamics as Colombia joins the Council as a non-permanent member for 2026-2027. In early December 2025, the US indicated its intention to convene meetings in Washington with the four other new members—Bahrain, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Latvia, and Liberia—to discuss future cooperation at the Security Council, while excluding Colombia.
The advent of the four other incoming members may also affect Council dynamics on the Colombia file. Among the Council members that finished their term in 2025, Guyana played a strong role as part of the “A3 Plus” grouping (together with then-members Algeria and Sierra Leone and current member Somalia) in highlighting issues affecting indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and stressing the need to implement the 2016 agreement’s ethnic chapter. It remains to be seen if the new “A3” grouping (the DRC, Liberia, and Somalia) will take a similar approach.
The UK is the penholder on Colombia.
| Security Council Resolution | |
| 31 October 2025S/RES/2798 | This resolution renewed the mandate of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia for another year, until 31 October 2026. It removed two of the mission’s tasks: verifying compliance with the restorative sentences handed by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) and monitoring implementation of the 2016 agreement’s ethnic chapter. |
| Security Council Meeting Record | |
| 3 October 2025S/PV.10010 | This was the Council’s quarterly meeting on Colombia, held on 3 October 2025. |
