Miami (November 17, 2011)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) announced today it has decided to award its 2012 Chapultepec Grand Prize to renowned Mexican historian, author and journalist Enrique Krauze “for his meritorious work in defense of freedom of expression and the principles of the Declaration of Chapultepec.”
During the recent meeting of the Chapultepec Grand Prize Selection Committee that was held during the IAPA’s General Assembly in Lima, Peru, October 14-18 the adjudication panel made the decision to grant the award to Krauze. The IAPA will present it formally during its upcoming Midyear Meeting, to be held in Cádiz, Spain, April 20-23, 2012.
A prominent historian, essayist and editor Krauze is the recipient of a number of awards and recognitions. Together with author and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz he was an active participant in the conference that gave rise to the Declaration of Chapultepec in 1994. For more than 20 years he also collaborated with Octavio Paz in the magazine Vuelta, of which he was news editor (1977-1981) and managing editor (1981-1996). In 1992 he founded Editorial Clío, of which he is editor, the same position that he holds with the cultural magazine Letras Libres, which he founded in 1999. As an author he has written numerous books and essays, among which are the series “Biografía del poder (Biography of Power) (1987), La presidencia imperial (The Imperial Presidency) (1997), and Tarea política. La construcción de la democracia (Political Task. The Construction of Democracy) (2000).
The Declaration of Chapultepec consists of 10 principles that should exist in a society for an independent press to be able to perform its role in a democracy. It was adopted on March 11, 1994 in Mexico City within the framework of a hemisphere conference on Freedom of Expression held by the IAPA.
Signed by more than 50 presidents and other heads of state in the Americas the Declaration has become a standard that enables the measurement of the level of press freedom in the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Its text was fundamental in the adoption in 2002 of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression. The Declaration of Chapultepec is frequently cited in legal proceedings in the region.
The IAPA has awarded the Chapultepec Grand Prize annually since 1998. Its previous winners include Federico Mayor Zaragoza, UNESCO; Arthur O. Sulzberger, The New York Times Company; Dana Bullen, World Press Freedom Committee; Jorge Santistevan, Peru Ombudsman; Claudio Grossman, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR); Anthony Lewis, The New York Times; Santiago Cantón, IACHR; Ricardo Lorenzetti, Argentine Supreme Court; Asdrúbal Aguiar, El Universal of Caracas; José Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch, and Nobel Literature Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. In addition, it has been granted to two institutions for their contributions to the defense of press freedom – the Inter-American Human Rights Court and the World Bank.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
