Miami (October 26, 2023) - The Inter American Press Association will celebrate 30 years since the Declaration of Chapultepec and five years since the Declaration of Salta during its General Assembly to be held November 9-12 in Mexico City.
IAPA President Michael Greenspon of The New York Times invited President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Mexico's two presidential pre-candidates, Bertha Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, to join in the celebration and endorse both fundamental press freedom documents.
The Declaration of Chapultepec was promulgated in 1994 at Chapultepec Castle in the Mexican capital. It has since served the IAPA to cement its fight for press freedom and freedom of expression. The declaration has received the support of dozens of heads of state, including several presidents and former presidents of the United States, such as Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush, as well as Latin American and Caribbean leaders.
The Salta Declaration on Principles of Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age was adopted in 2018 in the Argentine city of Salta. In Mexico, the IAPA will begin updating it in light of the development of artificial intelligence and the evolution of new communication and information technologies.
The IAPA authorities will begin the updating process in Mexico. They expect to open consultation with external experts and finish the process in the next General Assembly in Córdoba, Argentina, in October 2024.
The IAPA origins date back to a century ago. In 1923, the III Pan-American Congress gathered in Santiago de Chile and ordered the creation of an annual meeting of journalists from the continent, which materialized three years later in the first conference of hemispheric journalists held in 1926 in Washington D.C.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.
