Human Rights

Minister Albares addresses the UN Human Rights Council (2024).​

Spain is a country that is deeply committed to human rights, whose protection and promotion are priorities of our foreign policy. Freedom, justice and peace are built on respect for the dignity and inalienable rights of all people. Spain wishes to contribute, at both the national and EU levels, to a freer, fairer, and peaceful world.

A clear reflection of Spain's commitment to the protection of human rights is the election of our country as a member of the Human Rights Council for the 2025-2027 term. This is the third time Spain has formed part of the Council, having first been elected for the 2011–2013 term and subsequently for 2018–2020. 

The fight against the death penalty is a priority of Spanish foreign action. Hundreds of people across the world are executed each year in application of the death penalty in all circumstances and irrespective of the crime committed. The International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP), established in 2010 and based in Madrid, is led by twenty-five independent figures from every region of the world. Spain, together with the European Union and the International Commission, is working to ensure that other countries reduce the number of crimes punishable with the death penalty, commute death sentences or reform their laws so that judges have the option of imposing custodial sentences instead of the death penalty, thus moving towards abolition.

Another priority identified by Spain is the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities. Spain defends the approach of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), the adoption of which represented a paradigm shift, with the recognition of persons with disabilities as true rights holders. The position of Ambassador-at-Large for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was created in October 2022.

The fight for equality between men and women is a cross-cutting and priority line of action of Spain’s Feminist Foreign Policy​. Through active participation in the European Union and in the United Nations system, Spain has spearheaded the creation of international instruments, institutional strengthening and the establishment of transformative policies in this sphere. This commitment is expressed in firm diplomatic action to eradicate all forms of gender-based discrimination and to ensure comprehensive protection of the human rights of all women and girls, everywhere in the world.

Recognition of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation has long been a key priority of Spanish foreign policy on human rights and development cooperation. In 2006, Spain and Germany launched a joint initiative to secure recognition of this right within the United Nations, considering that the right to safe drinking water and sanitation is essential to the realization of other human rights and a vital component of the right to an adequate standard of living, set forth in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

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The fight against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity is another priority of Spain's foreign action. Spain participates in the main multilateral initiatives to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTI persons, and is considered a leader in the recognition and defence of LGBTI rights. In recent years, our country has pursued and supported the mandate of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; moreover, Spain co-chairs, with Colombia, the Equal Rights Coalition (ERC) and forms part of both the UN LGBTI Core Group and the European Governmental LGBTI Focal Points Network of the Council of Europe. In 2023, Spain also became a member of the Global Equality Fund, a public-private partnership that supports civil society programmes to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTI persons the world over. The position of Ambassador-at-Large for LGBTI+ rights was created in July 2025.

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