A/HRC/42/18 49. On 24 January 2019, the National Assembly adopted Law 985, aimed at “implementing the general legal framework to guarantee a culture of dialogue, reconciliation, security, work and peace”.58 The Law does not address the multiple human rights violations suffered by thousands of victims since April 2018. Its very general and vague provisions evoke the promotion of solidarity, values and behaviours to preserve peace, and of measures to safeguard peaceful coexistence among Nicaraguans. The Government indicated that pursuant to Law 985, 6,931 commissions of reconciliation, justice and peace were established, without providing further details on their members or their functioning. 50. Although the negotiation agenda adopted in March 2019 includes “truth, justice, reparation and non-recurrence”, no agreement had been reached on these matters at the time of writing. After the negotiations came to a standstill, the Government, with the support of the National Assembly, adopted unilateral measures purporting to address these issues, without consulting victims’ organizations. 51. On 29 May and 8 June 2019, the National Assembly adopted the Law on Comprehensive Care for Victims (Law 994) and the Amnesty Law (Law 996). The former focuses on granting victims priority access to health care, education, employment, housing and leisure, but does not provide for their right to remedy or other appropriate and proportionate measures of reparation, including compensation and guarantees of nonrecurrence. Furthermore, the introduction of Law 994 refers to the willingness of the authorities to respond to the damage caused to victims the “failed coup d’état”, implying that opponents of the Government during the 2018 protests were perpetrators of the failed coup, rather than victims.59 52. Law 996 can lead to impunity for gross human rights violations, in contradiction to international law. Article 1 of the Law provides for a broad amnesty that benefits all persons (without further identification) who participated in the events that have occurred in Nicaragua since 18 April 2018 and who have not been the subject of investigations; those who are being investigated or criminally prosecuted; and those whose sentences are in the execution phase. The Law also establishes that the authorities will not initiate investigations and will close criminal and administrative proceedings in progress. Article 2 provides that Law 996 applies to “all political crimes” (which are not defined in the Criminal Code) and to “related common crimes”, except for crimes regulated in international treaties to which Nicaragua is a party. The Law also contains a “non-recurrence” clause providing for the possible revocation of amnesty if the beneficiaries engage again in crimes listed in the Law. In July 2019, two civil society organizations filed legal motions before the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of Law 996. 53. None of the unilateral measures undertaken by the Government has been designed for the purpose of establishing accountability which, coupled with the lack of independence in the administration of justice, entrenches impunity for human rights violations. IX. Impact of the crisis on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights 54. National authorities have implemented policies and measures which generated a reduction in the prevalence of general poverty from 42.5 to 24.9 per cent between 2009 and 2016, while extreme poverty fell from 14.6 to 6.9 per cent during the same period (E/C/12/NIC/5). Nicaragua was one of the first Latin American countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015, as recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Programme. It also met Millennium Development Goal 4 of reducing the under-five child mortality rate per 1,000 live births by two thirds by 2015 (A/HRC/WG.6/33/NIC/1). 58 59 12 Communication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 23 August 2019, with comments on the OHCHR report “Human rights violations”, p. 21. See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24684&LangID=E.