Background: CELAC, the regional community behind the Zone of Peace declaration Cuba invoked

Background

Cuba's statement in the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly leaned on a regional proclamation that declared Latin America and the Caribbean a Zone of Peace. That proclamation came out of the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, known by its Spanish abbreviation CELAC, held in Havana in January 2014. CELAC has 33 member countries, and Cuba is one of them. The grouping took shape at a Latin American and Caribbean summit at Playa del Carmen in Mexico in 2010 and was formally set up at the Caracas summit in Venezuela the following year. Its stated purposes are peace, social and economic development, regional integration and a stronger joint voice in multilateral talks. At the Havana summit the leaders asked the Food and Agriculture Organization, ALADI and ECLAC to draw up a food security plan for the region. The body is therefore both a political platform and a route through which the region commissions work from United Nations agencies.