Santiago Canton and Angelita Baeyens
They knew that what they were doing was not an ordinary task. Transforming a world of horrof into a world of dignity and peace was not going to be easy. But the founders of the modern human rights architecture were aware of the groundbreaking mission they were undertaking, and the words they chose to describe that moment in history attest to that belief. In signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on December 10, 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt had declared: “We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind.” René Cassin, the principal drafter of the UDHR, had compared the document to a Greek temple that would lead to a better world. Twelve years later, at the regional level, in the inaugural speech of the sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1960, its president, Rómulo Gallegos, made a similar declaration: “There is a thirst for justice in various parts of the American continent. It is suffered by conscious peoples, possessors of the inviolable right to obtain material and spiritual well-being. And our Commission, obedient to the purpose of protecting and defending the constitutive rights of human dignity, cannot be destined to fail.”
The optimistic words of these human rights champions were an appropriate prologue to the extraordinary advance of human rights that would follow. For more than seven decades, the impact of the UDHR reached every corner of the world through the development of national laws and international treaties, multilateral institutions, and civil society organizations. A new consensus had emerged on the centrality of human dignity following the horrors of the war.
The first step of the new consensus was to move from the aspiration of the “common standard of achievement for all peoples and for all nations” of the UDHR, toward stronger mechanisms of rights enforcement. This came with the entry into force of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1953, modeled on the UDHR.[1] The European Convention established two institutions to supervise compliance with its precepts: the European Commission of Human Rights (1954), and the European Court of Human Rights (1959). In addition, it entrusted the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe with the role of monitoring the execution of the Court’s judgments.
In the Americas, the member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) quickly followed the development of a regional human rights system with the creation in 1959 of the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR). Modeled after the European system, the IASHR consists of two bodies, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), established in 1959, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), established in 1979.
Decades later, the model initiated by the European system would also reach the African continent with the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) in 1982, and the consequent establishment of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) in 1986, followed eighteen years later by the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR). Other regional systems, which have not been fully developed to the same degree as the European, African, or inter-American ones include the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), established in 2009 by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the Arab League’s Human Rights Charter and future Court of Human Rights.[2] The ripple effects of the UDHR can still be felt seventy years later as international norms and institutions continue to advance.
The Inter-American Human Rights System
in Times of Dictatorships
The historical context that gave birth to the IACHR was not ideal for the creation of a body that must be able to act independently from governments to be successful. The IACHR was created during one of the tensest periods of political turmoil in Latin America’s history. In January 1959, Fidel Castro’s “26th of July movement” took down the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and while initially well-received by many governments, Castro’s attempt to expand the revolution to other corners of the Americas immediately turned into a hemispheric crisis. In July, the OAS Permanent Council called for a meeting of the foreign ministries to discuss the maintenance of peace in the Americas, particularly in the Caribbean region, as well as the “effective exercise of representative democracy and respect for human rights.”[3] The final act of the meeting, held in Santiago de Chile in August 1959, created the IACHR and other institutions. One of its aims was “to condemn the methods of every system tending to suppress political and civil rights and liberties, and in particular the action of international communism or any other totalitarian doctrine.”[4]
In spite of its origins marked by the Cold War and a strong U.S. governmental influence over the OAS, thanks to the integrity of its members, the IACHR was able to develop as an independent institution driven to uphold the inter-American human rights norms irrespective of the region’s ideological divide.
Right from the start, the IACHR had to deal with a very complex political reality in Latin America. The pendulum constantly swung between democracy and human rights on one side, and military dictatorships and authoritarian leaders on the other. In its inaugural year, the renowned New York Times journalist Tad Szulc started his book Twilights of the Tyrants with an optimistic sentence: “The long age of dictators in Latin America is finally in its twilight.” Over the previous decade, country after country in Latin America had moved from dictatorship to democracy. With the end of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in May 1961, most countries in the region had governments elected by the popular will of the people. In the United States, President John F. Kennedy initiated the Alliance for Progress to support economic development and social justice in Latin America. Szulc’s optimism seemed well-founded, and the region was on track for progress and democracy. But the pendulum always swings back, and democracy would soon lose ground once again. By the end of the decade, fifteen of the twenty-one Latin American countries were ruled by military governments.
In such a turbulent political environment, the role of the IACHR in those early years had a very strong political component. Visits by the Commission to the Dominican Republic during the crisis of 1961, to Augusto Pinochet’s Chile in 1974, to Anastasio Somoza’s Nicaragua in 1978, and to Argentina’s military junta in 1979 all attest to the relevance of the IACHR’s political role. In some instances, those visits helped to diminish the massive and systematic human rights violations or facilitated mediation between the government and the insurgent movements. This includes the role played in the hostage crisis at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Bogotá in February 1980, when the IACHR helped to negotiate the release of more than fifty people who were held captive by the guerrilla movement M-19.[5] Whether or not it was fully the intention of the OAS member states at the time to provide the IACHR with such broad authority to publicly examine the human rights situations in their countries, especially when so many of them were under authoritarian regimes, the IACHR did construe its mandate as such. In the words of former IACHR president Tom Farer, the Commission became some sort of “Hemispheric Grand Jury,” filling the void that was left by weak and co-opted judiciaries around the region and the complacent eye of the West.[6]
During this decade, while its political role was clearly the most visible, the Commission’s judicial role was not at all dormant. Very early on, the IACHR received thousands of complaints from individuals across Latin America and the Caribbean who claimed their rights had been violated.[7] Notably, the on-site visit to Argentina in 1979 enabled it to receive 4,153 new complaints in addition to the 596 cases already submitted.[8] The individual petition system was used then by the IACHR more as a thermometer to assess the human rights situation than as a strict legal proceeding followed by a final decision on the merits of the case. And it also served as a warning to the governments that the international community was closely observing the human rights situation in their countries.
However, over the next decades, two main factors would strengthen the IACHR’s judicial role: the entry into force of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) in 1978, followed by the establishment of the Inter-American Court, and the return to democracy in most Latin American countries during the 1980s.
The establishment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), with its own procedural rules, put pressure on the Commission as the “entry door” to the system to ensure that its procedures followed the same or similar standards.[9] The amendments to the IACHR’s Rules of Procedure are indicative of the changes implemented to strengthen its judicial mandate. Nine out of ten such amendments were made after the establishment of the Court, which slowly started to receive cases referred by the IACHR in 1986. The first case, Velásquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras, was submitted by the IACHR to the Inter-American Court on April 24, 1986. Thereafter the IACHR submitted on average only one or two matters per year to the Court.
The Inter-American System in Times of Democracy
The return of democracy across the Americas by the end of the 1980s also had an impact on the functioning of the Commission. The new democracies, in many instances grateful to the IACHR for its role in denouncing the human rights violations of the past, started to cooperate and engage with it in a more systematic way. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay ratified the American Convention and accepted the Court’s jurisdiction.[10] Mexico and Brazil accepted the IACHR’s jurisdiction toward the end of the 1990s and invited it for the first time to conduct on-site visits to evaluate the human rights situations in their countries.[11] In addition, the new freedom helped human rights organizations at the national level to become more active in publicly denouncing human rights violations committed under the new democratic regimes.
The judicial role of the IACHR continued to strengthen significantly over the next decades. This can be clearly observed from the gradual increase in the number of individual petitions received by the Commission since 1997, when it started to record them systematically. By 2019, the number had increased by 597.5 percent.[12]
Arguably, the precautionary measures are the Commission’s most important tool to respond quickly and preemptively to particularly serious human rights situations. This mechanism, whereby the IACHR requests a state to adopt urgent measures to protect rights at a great risk of irreparable harm, has been instrumental in protecting the lives of thousands of people across the region.[13] Its quicker nature, and the fact that it does not involve an adversarial process, as well as its use in sometimes highly sensitive situations, has irked some states more than once. While the precautionary measures started to be implemented during the 1980s, they became more widely used during the 1990s. In regard to Colombia, for example, the issuance of precautionary measures became a critical part of the Commission’s efforts to protect the lives of hundreds of human rights activists, union leaders, journalists, and members of Indigenous or Afro-Colombian communities who were under serious threat in the context of the internal armed conflict.[14] Since 2005, when the Commission started to keep track of the number of requests for precautionary measures it received, these had increased by 341.5 percent.[15]
Starting in the 1990s, but particularly in the following decade, the IACHR strengthened existing mandates and developed new functions to better protect human rights. For example, the thematic focus through the establishment of rapporteurships (coordinated with similar efforts at the UN level) became a significant tool during this period. From an initial role mainly limited to promotional activities, from the 1990s the rapporteurships became very active in denouncing human rights violations, promoting precautionary measures, advancing cases at the Commission and Court, and furthering inter-American standards. In addition, the creation of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in 1998 represented a significant change from the traditional thematic rapporteurships: while all the others are led by one of the seven Commissioners, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression was conceived to be independent from the Commission and is headed by a full-time independent expert. This structure proved to be very successful, and the Special Rapporteur accomplished significant results in the protection of freedom of expression in the Americas, including the repeal of defamation laws and progress in specific protections for the press. A similar model was established in 2014 with the creation of the office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights,[16] although an independent expert was not selected until 2017.[17]
As part of its monitoring mandate, the IACHR also used a specific chapter of its annual report to highlight a list of countries with particularly serious human rights situations and democratic backlashes. This “Chapter IV” list was established in the 1970s, but it only started to gain significant attention from the international community and the media during the 1990s and 2000s, particularly during the OAS General Assembly—the annual meeting of the foreign ministries of the Americas. This mechanism played a critical role in alerting the international community of the most serious human rights concerns, for example, in countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela.
The members of the IACHR and the judges of the Inter-American Court do not serve on a full-time basis; only their respective Secretariats do. Likewise, the members do not necessarily have the capacity or, sometimes, the technical expertise to respond to all human rights demands and tasks. For this reason, more exceptionally at first and more frequently in recent years, the IACHR has also designated other independent experts to investigate critical human rights cases or situations.
One of these special expert mechanisms set up by the IACHR was prompted by the disappearance of forty-three students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in 2014, which became a symbol of the human rights crisis in Mexico, where more than 85,000 people have been reported as disappeared since the launch of the “war against narcotrafficking” by President Felipe Calderón in 2006.[18] In response to a request from civil society organizations representing the students’ relatives, and with the consent of the Mexican government, the IACHR created an interdisciplinary group of five independent experts, GIEI (for its acronym in Spanish).[19] Its mandate was to undertake a technical assessment of the actions implemented by the Mexican state regarding the students’ disappearance.[20] The GIEI ended its second term with a detailed report that discredited the official version of the facts fabricated around the Ayotzinapa students and forced the state to reopen and drastically redirect the investigation.
The IACHR had adopted a similar approach on earlier occasions, for instance, in the investigation of the death of prominent Mexican human rights defender Digna Ochoa in 2001,[21] and the trial observation of the case on the terrorist attack on the Mutual Israel-Argentina Association (AMIA) case in Argentina.[22] However, since the Ayotzinapa GIEI, it has created new GIEIs to address the 2018 Nicaragua crisis and the human rights abuses that took place in 2019 in Bolivia.[23] Similar mechanisms, albeit staffed by members of the IACHR and its Secretariat instead of external independent experts, have been put in place to investigate the killing of members of the Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio on the border with Colombia in 2018, as well as the more general situation in Nicaragua and Venezuela, or the impact of COVID-19 across the region.[24] All these mechanisms have allowed the IACHR to be much more “hands-on” in regard to high-profile cases or critical human rights situations, but at the same time imply significant resources and political support from OAS member states.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights
While the transformation of the IACHR has been more remarkable, given the broad nature of its mandate, the Inter-American Court has also evolved considerably over time, increasing its impact and the far-reaching nature of its decisions and opinions.
The American Convention on Human Rights took almost a decade to gather enough ratifications to enter into force, and as a result it was not until 1979 that the Court started functioning. As mentioned earlier, it took a while for the IACHR to start referring cases, and in the two decades after its establishment, the tribunal only ruled on the merits of twenty cases. Meanwhile, however, the Court made good use of its advisory jurisdiction, having issued sixteen out of its twenty-seven advisory opinions by 1999.
With jurisdiction over a majority of Spanish-speaking countries, the Court has developed a small (compared to its European counterpart) but rich caseload with far-reaching implications for its jurisprudential standards and reparations.[25] A well-known example of its impact can be found in the judicial affirmation of the Commission’s position that amnesty laws are contrary to international law, as decided in the Barrios Altos case against Peru: this affirmation prompted Argentina to repeal its Due Obedience and Full Stop laws.[26] Other relevant examples include the standards of reinforced due diligence duty of states to prevent and investigate gender-based violence, and the need to adopt transformative reparations, as concluded in the Cotton Field case against Mexico;[27] decisions on equality and nondiscrimination against Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Peru (to name a few); or the more recent cases dealing with the right to health or social security, and the right to a healthy environment.[28]
Another important tool developed by the Inter-American Court is the “conventionality control theory.”[29] This was first explicitly used by the Court in 2006 in the Almonacid Arellano v. Chile case and has been further reaffirmed in subsequent cases.[30] The Court initially extended the obligation to apply the American Convention to all judges at the domestic level in countries that are party to the treaty, but it has gone further by stating that this obligation includes following the interpretation of the Convention by the Court, regarded as its ultimate interpreter.
The evolution of the Court has been not only substantive but also procedural. In this regard, one of the most significant changes to its rules was made in 2000, when the victims were granted direct standing before the Court (locus standi in judicio).[31] This was a major departure from previous proceedings, which contemplated the Commission as the representative of the victims before the Court. States reacted by complaining that this broke the principle of “equality of arms,” as they considered that they were forced to litigate against two parties instead of one.[32] Consequently, in a new amendment of the rules in 2009, the IACHR’s role in the proceedings before the Court became relegated to that of a “guarantor of the Inter-American public order of human rights.”[33]
Undoubtedly, the overall impact of the IASHR has been extraordinary. During several decades it has played a critical role in confronting dictatorships, supporting transitions to democracy, and consolidating new democracies. The IACHR’s and Court’s decisions regarding the incompatibility of amnesty laws with international human rights, the creation of critical standards regarding access to information and freedom of expression, and their progressive decisions regarding the rights of women, Indigenous peoples, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) people are only a few examples of the inter-American system’s many contributions in the Americas, which have earned it the nickname of the “crown jewel” of the OAS, an organization that has little to show besides the work of its human rights system and its observation of elections. Nevertheless, the success of the IASHR has not come without a high cost, and the “lack of polishing” of this jewel may make it lose its brightness.
The Inter-American Human Rights System
in Times of Division
The relationship between the governments and the organs of the Inter-American System of Human Rights always had a degree of tension, with occasional accusations against the IACHR (in particular) of abusing its mandate and disrespecting state sovereignty. This was clear with regard to military governments and also during the 1990s in Alberto Fujimori’s Peru. Indeed, Peru led several initiatives to “strengthen” the regional body, which in reality sought to “dramatically curb, if not gut, the supervisory powers of the Commission.”[34] But it was during the first decade of this century that governments of the region developed more coordinated efforts to undermine the work of the IACHR. Several states started more vocally affirming the narrative that the IACHR treated the “new” democracies in the same way it had treated dictatorships during the 1970s, that it was exceeding its powers, and that it did not act as a subsidiary organ to the national justice systems in the region. This narrative did not come only from countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, or Venezuela, which had been under great scrutiny from the Commission during the first part of the 2000s; it also arose in countries that had traditionally defended the Commission or had maintained a neutral position, such as Argentina or Brazil.
In addition, a group of countries with “populist leaders,” including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela worked in coordination to undermine the work of the Commission. A number of proposals to transform the IASHR were vociferously proclaimed by these leaders during the OAS General Assembly and other inter-American gatherings. The proposals to “strengthen” the system went from completely abolishing the Commission, to establishing a new human rights body controlled by the governments, to relocating the Commission’s headquarters away from Washington in order to remove it from U.S. influence.[35]
The public attention that these proposals attracted created a perception that Latin America’s populist movement was the only force behind the efforts to undermine the work of the Commission. However, a simple review of the calls by states for reforms shows that behind every criticism there was always a specific decision that the governments disliked, independently of their own particular ideology: a report after a visit, or a precautionary measure, a decision to refer a case to the IACtHR, or a press release of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. The arguments were thus a reaction to concrete actions by the IACHR in support of human rights. Criticism by the states was not limited to expressions of discontent or complaints during formal meetings of the political bodies of the OAS, as had traditionally been the case. On the contrary, under the cynical euphemism of “strengthening” the IASHR, many states initiated processes within the OAS to undermine the work of the IACHR. In particular, the 2012 “strengthening process” supported mainly by Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, specifically targeted the precautionary measures, Chapter IV of the Commission’s Annual Report, and the independence of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.
One of the triggers for these renewed coordinated efforts to limit the powers of the IACHR was the issuance of precautionary measures to protect Indigenous populations living near the Belo Monte Dam construction in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin.[36] The IACHR initially requested Brazil to halt the construction of the hydroelectric plant. This prompted a furious reaction by the Brazilian government, which recalled its ambassador to the OAS, formally announced its decision not to present a Brazilian candidate to the Commission, and suspended its financial contributions to the IACHR and the OAS as a whole.[37]
Ecuador’s source of resentment against the IACHR was especially related to the workings of its Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the vocal criticism of the government’s efforts to silence the press and any other critical voices.[38] The defamation case against two journalists and four executives of the newspaper El Universo for a publication related to alleged acts of corruption by President Rafael Correa’s brother, and in which the IACHR granted precautionary measures,[39] sparked a very personal vendetta by the president against the Commission.[40]
In the case of Venezuela, the relationship with the Commission under Hugo Chávez’s presidency started very positively. In September 1999, only months after his inauguration, Chávez became the first sitting president to visit the IACHR’s headquarters. During his meeting with the Commission, the president expressed his support for its work and invited it to conduct an “on-site” visit to Venezuela. The relationship soon turned bitter, however, particularly after the Commission’s highly critical post visit report was published in 2003.[41] Since then, Venezuela under Chávez and later under Nicolás Maduro has taken an openly hostile stance toward the IACHR.
Colombia had been placed under Chapter IV in the Commission’s annual reports for twelve consecutive years (2000–2011) alongside Cuba, Venezuela, and certain others. Colombia was also consistently listed among the three top countries, both for the number of individual complaints received by the Commission and for cases in admissibility or merit stages. Additionally, for over a decade the IACHR had issued dozens of precautionary measures a year on behalf of social and political leaders at risk, and many of the cases decided by the Commission and eventually by the Court exposed the strong links between paramilitary units and the Colombian security forces.
Each for its own reasons, various countries in the region coincided in their desire to restrict the reach and powers of the Commission and also to send a warning signal to the Court, leading to the so-called strengthening process mentioned above. Unfortunately, instead of engaging in a high-level dialogue with governments to defend the integrity of IACHR’s mandate and of its practices, as they had done in the past, the Commissioners yielded to the pressures from the states and responded by significantly amending their Rules of Procedure. Not surprisingly, one of the most significant changes involved the criteria for granting precautionary measures. The impact of the amendments is reflected in the dramatic fall in the number of precautionary measures granted since the reform in 2013. From 2005, when the IACHR started keeping track of the requests for precautionary measures, until 2013, when the rules were amended to appease the criticisms from many states, the IACHR granted 13 percent of the measures requested. But from 2013 until 2020, under the amended rules, it only granted 5.2 percent of such requests: a stark decrease in the use of the most important tool to protect human rights throughout the Americas. Unfortunately, this trend continues to date; between 2018 and 2020, the Commission only granted 3.7 percent of the precautionary measures requested.
The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression was another critical target of the OAS member states. Created with the strong support of the heads of state of the Americas during a summit in Chile in 1998, this rapporteurship was established by the IACHR as a new mechanism to protect the right of freedom of expression. The Special Rapporteur, though selected by the members of the Commission, was conceived as capable of executing this mandate very independently in the shape of an expert based full-time at headquarters in Washington. During its first decade, the rapporteurship had its own agenda and enjoyed little or no influence from the members of the IACHR in its execution. However, under pressure from the governments of Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela, among many others, the IACHR started to exert more control over the work of the Special Rapporteur, including through the Commission’s Executive Secretariat.
In addition to exerting direct threats and pressure on the Inter-American System of Human Rights, states have also exerted pressure through the OAS General Secretariat. While a source of constant tension between the IACHR and successive OAS general secretaries is embedded in the Commission’s Statute and particularly the appointment of the IACHR executive secretary, there have been some attempts to directly control the Commission. During his short-lived tenure as secretary general, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez tried to create a position directly dependent on him that would control its workings outright, and without any notice or due process, he attempted to cancel the contract of Eduardo Bertoni, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression appointed by the IACHR. Similarly, one of the first things Chilean secretary general José Miguel Insulza tried to do was to remove Santiago Canton (coauthor of this chapter) from his position as executive secretary.[42] In both instances, thanks to the quick and strong unified reaction of the members of the IACHR, these attempts were unsuccessful. However, they did represent a new threat to the independence of the IACHR that had not previously existed. Also, not surprisingly, both positions, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the executive secretary of the IACHR, were constant targets of attacks by Venezuela during the Chávez presidency.
Historical and Emerging Challenges
In addition to the changes and practices that affected the work of the IACHR, other aspects of the system have historically represented a challenge to its overall effectiveness: its lack of universality, the lack of compliance with its decisions and recommendations, the chronic underfunding of its institutions, the significantly small number of complaints it receives, and the time it takes to resolve them.
While the number of countries that make up the OAS is relatively low in comparison with its regional counterparts, the IASHR operates with four different levels of protection for the people of the region, depending on the country from which they are seeking protection. The lowest level of protection applies to the twelve member states, including the United States, that have not ratified the system’s main source of law, the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). The practical implication is that victims of human rights violations in these countries can only seek the protection of the IACHR and do so under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, whose binding force is under continuous discussion. The next level of protection operates in the three OAS member states that have ratified the ACHR but have not accepted the jurisdiction of the IACtHR. Victims in these states therefore cannot have access to the regional system beyond the IACHR. The third level, covering the majority (twenty-three) of member states, relates to those that have ratified the ACHR and accepted the jurisdiction of the IACtHR. Therefore victims could in theory see their cases referred by the IACHR to the Court, provided they comply with the necessary admissibility and merits requirements. Only a handful of OAS member states have ratified most or all of the ten basic inter-American human rights treaties, in addition to accepting the jurisdiction of the IACtHR. It is unacceptable that more than sixty years after the creation of the IASHR, so many countries in the region have not yet ratified all regional human rights treaties.
The second endemic problem that has affected the impact of the Inter-American System of Human Rights is the lack of significant compliance with the decisions and recommendations of its two constitutive organs. While this is hardly a challenge that is exclusive to the IASHR, the low levels of compliance expose its structural weakness, but also the obvious need to engage in a major reform of the OAS itself. Even during the most critical exercises of reform and so-called strengthening of the IASHR, OAS member states have consistently failed to evaluate their own behavior in ensuring its effectiveness, as well as in holding other member states accountable for failing to comply with the decisions of its organs. Today, states do not even make use of the presentations of the annual reports by the IACHR and the Court during the OAS General Assembly to evaluate state compliance with the decisions of these bodies. Neither of them has much more than its follow-up mechanism to ensure states’ compliance with its decisions. While it could be argued that this serves as some sort of “naming and shaming” mechanism, it puts the burden back on civil society and the victims themselves to continue advocating for compliance with a decision years after it was issued. Indeed, the IACtHR has closed only 35 out of 421 cases for reasons of compliance.
A third major challenge for the IASHR has historically been the lack of adequate funding. In particular, the Commission—which, as discussed above, has a wide and varied mandate that includes political, monitoring, advisory, and adjudicatory functions—has suffered from chronic underfunding for decades. Even though in 2018 both the Commission and the Court started receiving a significant and gradual increase in regular funds from the OAS, this still only represents 19 percent of its overall budget.[43] At the close of 2020, the IACHR had a budget of $15,964,800, of which 57 percent came from the regular OAS budget and 43 percent from voluntary contributions by member states or through international cooperation.
The fourth critical aspect of the system that seriously undermines its impact and relevance is the limited number of petitions received by the IACHR and the length of time it takes to decide on their merit. While the number of individual petitions has increased significantly since 1997, in comparison with similar systems it is still extremely low. The Inter-American System of Human Rights is set to afford access to international justice to approximately one billion people in a region where the domestic judiciary systems face abundant challenges. Yet in 2020 the Commission received only 2,448 cases, while the European Court of Human Rights, with jurisdiction over 750 million people, received 41,700 cases. Indeed, the European system received more cases in one year than the IACHR did in twenty-three years (35,509). Further, the increase in the number of cases filed with the IACHR does not seem to show a significant upward trend, and in 2020 it actually received almost 20 percent fewer cases than in 2019.
It could be argued that the impact of the IACHR should not be measured by the number of cases received, as long as the quality and reach of the decisions address important issues and human rights challenges in the region. And that is partially true. But the combination of this relatively low number of petitions and the other part of this critical challenge, the protracted proceedings, show the weaknesses and shallow reach of the system. On average, from the moment of filing to the publication of a decision on the merits or its referral to the IACtHR, the process of an individual case before the IACHR takes seventeen years. The procedural delays are certainly a consequence of the great underfunding of the Commission, but also of competing demands and activities undertaken that stretch it very thin.
This also has an impact on the Court. Given that the Commission is the necessary gateway to access the IACtHR, it is not surprising that the latter receives very few cases: an average of fifteen per year in the past twenty years. For the most unequal region of the world, with a tradition of police brutality and military interventions, and a population of one billion, this is a staggeringly low figure.
In addition to the “traditional” challenges that have affected the IASHR for decades, there are new or emerging human rights concerns to which it is not well-equipped to respond, including corruption, the climate crisis, and the impact of businesses on human rights. It is recognized that these issues have an impact on the enjoyment of human rights, and the international human rights bodies have been asked to intervene on many occasions, but it is not yet clear what they can do and how much they can accomplish. When the human rights system was established, these issues were not part of the human rights agenda, but they present pressing challenges today. The international norms and supervisory human rights bodies are not in a position to address them effectively, but civil society is urging them to do so.
One can certainly recognize that corruption is nothing new, but it is only recently that the international community has started to acknowledge its impact on human rights. To live free from corruption is not yet recognized as a right, but reducing it is fundamental to the realization of other human rights. Further, as Schulz and Raman highlight, it is not a coincidence that the most corrupt countries in the world are also those with widespread human rights abuses, inadequate rule of law, and in some even active conflict.[44] The first time that the IACHR referred to corruption as a phenomenon with human rights implications was in a country report in 2001 after an on-site visit to Paraguay. Since then it has made many references to the impact of corruption on human rights, the most significant of which comprised a thematic report published in 2019.[45] But beyond these declarations carried out through its monitoring and promotional mandates, not much has been achieved.
Similarly, environmental degradation and the negative impact that large-scale business activities can have on the enjoyment of human rights were not considered when the human rights systems were established. Today, the international community has set important limitations for addressing these issues and ensuring powerful private actors abide by the same rules as states, and the intergovernmental human rights organizations are repeatedly asked by civil society organizations to get involved. However, they lack the relevant expertise and institutional capacity to do so in a comprehensive manner.
Finally, it is important to note that there are other contemporary challenges to the work of human rights mechanisms and their progressive interpretation of rights, challenges that are not limited to the Americas. One is the increased pressure from radical conservative groups and their influence on governments, which has at times also imposed practical restraints on the IACHR’s ability to work on sensitive issues, such as women’s sexual and reproductive rights.[46] In 2019, for example, the U.S. State Department, prompted by evangelical groups and U.S. senators, announced a reduction in its contributions to the OAS, accusing the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Commission on Women of allegedly lobbying for abortion. The effect was to weaken the capacity of the IACHR Rapporteurship on the Rights of Women and thus its work on important issues beyond reproductive rights. Similarly, evangelical opposition to the 2018 Inter-American Court’s decision in support of marriage equality[47] launched a previously unknown evangelical pastor’s presidential candidacy that same year; he reached the second round.[48]
Although the IASHR’s positive impact in the Americas cannot be denied, after more than sixty years, it is also clear that this impact has fallen short of the great expectations reflected in the optimistic words of its architects. Rómulo Gallego’s words about how the Commission would resolve the thirst for justice for the people of the Americas seem to be too far away from today’s reality. In most Latin American countries, the rule of law is crumbling, poverty and inequality are increasing, and insecurity and police brutality continue to be a permanent feature of society. Unless governments and intergovernmental organizations reignite the flame and spirit of 1948 with significant structural changes in the functioning of the system, the IASHR could become marginal and less relevant.
Both member states and the OAS have to adopt reforms to strengthen the system from the outside; this will reverberate in the inner strengthening of the IACHR and the Court. Previous reform processes have failed to address the traditional challenges because they have focused on the IASHR bodies, particularly the IACHR, instead of the structure that houses it, the OAS, and one of its main pillars, the states themselves. The so-called strengthening processes were initiated by the states with the purpose of exerting a stricter control over the IACHR, but none aimed at advancing the protection of human rights and their own role in ensuring this. Apart from establishing the role of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in 1997, the states have adopted no significant change to advance human rights since 1979, with the creation of the Inter-American Court. The governments, the OAS, and the inter-American human rights institutions must all take drastic measures to reinvigorate the regional system and to make it truly responsive to the needs and challenges of today.
When the internationalization of human rights was envisaged more than seventy years ago, the founders dreamed of a system that would bring peace and prosperity to all humankind. While that was clearly not accomplished, the human rights systems have been at the forefront in the fight for dignity all over the world. With great successes as well as failures, the human rights institutions have proved to be the main mechanisms with the independence and strength needed to confront the worst atrocities on a daily basis. The most important lesson of the last seven decades is that the international human rights systems are not only necessary but perhaps the only alternative to continue the fight for dignity. But we have also learned that these systems need to be redesigned and strengthened to address endemic problems and new challenges that were not envisioned at their founding.
As the experience of past reforms shows, at the outset of any discussion to reform the IASHR it is important to recognize that the main challenge in strengthening the system is the real possibility that some governments will try to use reform as a way to weaken it. That is the main reason why some governments and most human rights civil society organizations over the last two decades have avoided the issue. However, the status quo cannot be an option. The massive violations of human rights that are affecting millions of people all over the region must be countered more aggressively. The consensus built for decades around the American Declaration and Convention, as well as the Commission and the Court, while extraordinary in many respects, has also highlighted many old and new shortcomings that can no longer be ignored. To do so would only intensify the IASHR’s serious limitations in reaching out to the hundreds of millions of people who fall outside the margins. In attempting to reach a new consensus to improve our human rights systems, we need to keep in mind the ideals that guided the founders of the modern human rights system. They focused on universal values and human dignity. Sovereignty, nonintervention, international bureaucracies, and budgets did not overshadow their dream of setting the dignity of the individual as the ultimate goal of any state action. The concluding section presents some proposals in that direction.
Recommendations
While there are important changes that should be made by the two organs of the Inter-American Human Rights System, most of the necessary reforms that would allow the system to really reach its full potential lie in the OAS and the member states themselves.
Given that implementation is one of the major challenges and the biggest impediment to the effectiveness and relevance of human rights, an OAS mechanism to ensure compliance with the recommendations of the IACHR and the decisions of the IACtHR is long overdue. Improving upon the model of the Council of Europe and its Committee of Ministers, the OAS should create a kind of Special Rapporteur to follow up and advise member states on how to comply with the decisions of these two bodies. The Special Rapporteur should be able to act with complete independence from the OAS General Secretariat and to present a detailed report to the OAS political bodies. The rapporteurship’s advisory role on compliance should not include the interpretation of the decisions of the Commission or the Court but could help systematize their recommendations and decisions, thereby lifting a huge burden from the overstretched IACHR, and supporting the Court as well.
Replicating in some way the model of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the IACHR should have a more permanent presence in the countries of the region, or at least in subregional hubs. While this might initially entail a significant investment of resources, it could reduce some costs in the longer term, and more importantly, it would facilitate closer interaction with the people of the Americas and increase the IACHR’s influence and accessibility. This could allow for more regular and timely monitoring and gathering of key information for IACHR reports, and increase the number of individual petitions and precautionary measures filed. In addition, it could help with friendly settlements and compliance with the decisions and recommendations of both the IACHR and the Court. Of course, if stronger measures are not adopted to speed up the processing of cases at the IACHR, opening the door to a higher number of cases might lead to its complete collapse.
The OAS should create an independent High Commissioner of Human Rights to complement the work of the Commission in areas in which this body cannot intervene. For instance, a high commissioner could play an advisory role to the states in instances when the Commission has a pending case and cannot do so, and could advise the OAS secretary general on human rights issues. Over the years, the relationship between the Commission and the secretary general has proved difficult, with the former unable to play any sustained advisory role. A high commissioner could provide a space for civil society to engage more effectively on human rights with the political bodies of the OAS. For this mandate to really play a positive and constructive role that would complement the organs of the IASHR and not directly compete with them, the high commissioner should be bound to strict adherence to the principles and standards developed by the IACHR and the Inter-American Court, as the principal OAS organs and human rights authorities of the system. Additionally, the selection process for this post should be subject to the highest standards of transparency and should include the active participation of both the Commission and the Court, as well as civil society. This would avoid any real or perceived politicization of the role and ensure that the same qualities of human rights expertise and high moral authority required for a commissioner or a judge are met.
Like the Council of Europe, the OAS should redefine its goals to focus mainly on human rights and democracy. Although it has started to do so over recent years, there is still capacity in the OAS’s budget to improve and allocate most of its funds to human rights and democracy work. This would enable it, among other things, to appoint full-time judges and commissioners, establish a subregional IACHR presence throughout the inter-American system, increase the number and capacity of Special Rapporteurs, and create the role of OAS Special Rapporteur on Compliance with the recommendations and decisions of the IASHR, and even the role of a High Commissioner for Human Rights to complement the work of the system.
For the inter-American system to reach its full potential, states must become full parties to all regional human rights treaties and pass national laws to implement the decisions of its organs, as needed. This should include new binding legal instruments on business and human rights, corruption, and the impact of climate change on human rights, which should also be part of the inter-American human rights framework.
The bodies of the IASHR, and particularly the Commission, also need to implement serious changes to maximize their impact and effectiveness. The IACHR should prioritize the areas of its work that have more impact on the protection of human rights in the region and that are unique to its mandate. Areas such as human rights education could be undertaken by other existing bodies, for example, the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, or by potential new mechanisms, such as the office of the OAS High Commissioner for Human Rights proposed above.
To make the individual petition system truly more efficient and significantly increase its use throughout the region, more radical measures should be taken to speed up the processing of cases, including by systematically joining the analysis and decision on admissibility and merits instead of treating the decision to join both procedural stages as an exceptional measure, as is currently the case.
To address the lack of capacity and technical expertise on some important issues, the IACHR could consider adapting the working group model of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), as some commentators have suggested.[49] These working groups, led by one or more commissioners, also include a number of independent experts who share their technical expertise at no or very low cost to the ACHPR, thus expanding the pool of knowledge available to the Commission, ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to critical issues, such as the environmental impact of the extractive industries or the conditions of Indigenous populations and minorities, while alleviating the strain on the commissioners themselves.
Making these improvements to the Inter-American System of Human Rights and the way in which states engage with it might help calm the “thirst for justice” that Gallegos evoked in his inaugural speech at the head of the Commission. That thirst is stronger than ever.
Notes
1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Preamble, www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.
2. ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, https://aichr.org/about-aichr-2/; League of Arab States, Arab Charter on Human Rights, May 22, 2004, reprinted in 12 Int’l Hum. Rts. Rep. 893 (2005), entered into force March 15, 2008.
3. Fifth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Organization of American States, August 12–18, 1959, Final Act, p. 3, www.oas.org/council/MEETINGS%20OF%20CONSULTATION/Actas/Acta%205.pdf.
4. Fifth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Organization of American States, August 12–18, 1959, Final Act, The Declaration of Santiago, p. 4, www.oas.org/council/MEETINGS%20OF%20CONSULTATION/Actas/Acta%205.pdf.
5. IACHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Colombia, 30 June 1981, chapter C, The Commission and the Solution of the Problem Posed by the Seizure of the Dominican Embassy, June 30, 1981, www.cidh.org/countryrep/Colombia81eng/TOC.htm.
6. Tom Farer, “The Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime: No Longer a Unicorn, Not Yet an Ox,” Human Rights Quarterly 19, 3 (1997), p. 512.
7. During the first six years of its existence, the Commission received 3,776 cases. The numbers of petitions would later drop, and between 1969 and 1973, it received only 421 communications pertaining to a total of 205 cases. In 1974 there was a significant increase in the number of individual petitions, with 626 communications received, which referred to 617 cases. See IACHR Annual Reports of the years 1969–1974, www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/ia.asp, and the reports submitted by the IACHR to the Second Inter-American Conference, October 15, 1965. www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/Informe%20sometido%20por%20la%20CIDH%20a%20la%20segunda%20conf%20interam%20extraordinaria.pdf.
8. IACHR, “Annual Report 1979,” ch. II, www.cidh.org/annualrep/79.80eng/toc.htm.
9. American Convention on Human Rights, Art. 60, www.oas.org/dil/treaties_b-32_american_convention_on_human_rights.pdf.
10. Argentina in 1984, Uruguay in 1985, and Chile in 1990.
11. Brazil adhered to the American Convention on Human Rights in September 1992 and only accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court in December 1998. While Mexico adhered to the American Convention in 1981, it took almost twenty years, until 1998, for it to accept the jurisdiction of the Court.
12. The number of individual petitions received by the Commission in 1997 was 435. In 2019 the number of petitions received had increased to 3,034. See https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/multimedia/statistics/statistics.html.
13. IACHR, Rules of Procedure, Art. 25. See also IACHR, “Precautionary Measures,” www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/decisions/mc/about-precautionary.asp.
14. Robert K. Goldman, “History and Action: The Inter-American Human Rights System and the Role of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 31, 4 (2009), p. 876, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40389979.
15. IACH, Statistics, www.oas.org/en/iachr/multimedia/statistics/statistics.html.
16. “IACHR to Create an Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,” Press Release 34/14, IACHR Media Center, April 3, 2014, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2014/034.asp.
17. “IACHR Chooses Soledad García Muñoz as Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights (ESCER),” Press Release 090/19, IACHR Media Center, July 5, 2017, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2017/090.asp.
18. Stephanie Brewer, “Militarized Mexico: A Lost War That Has Not Brought Peace,” Washington Office on Latin America, May 12, 2021, www.wola.org/analysis/militarized-mexico-a-lost-war/.
19. IACHR, Follow-Up Mechanism to the Ayotzinapa Case (MESA), www.oas.org/en/iachr/activities/giei.asp.
20. “IACHR Makes Official Technical Cooperation Agreement about Ayotzinapa Students in Mexico,” Press Release 136/14, IACHR Media Center, November 18, 2014, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2014/136.asp.
21. “IACHR Mission to Mexico,” Press Release 1/03, January 10, 2003, www.cidh.org/Comunicados/English/2003/1.03.htm.
22. IACHR, Press Release 19/01, August 8, 2001. Dean Claudio Grossman, current president of the IACHR, was named as its observer for the trial in the criminal case concerning the bombing of a Jewish community center, the Asociación Mutual Israelita (AMIA), in Buenos Aires, www.cidh.org/Comunicados/English/2001/Press19-01.htm.
23. For Nicaragua, see “IACHR to Create Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts to Help Investigate Recent Violence in Nicaragua,” Press Release 121/18, IACHR Media Center, May 30, 2018, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2018/121.asp. For Bolivia, see “IACHR announces integration of Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia,” Press Release 13/20, IACHR Media Center, January 23, 2020, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2020/013.asp.
24. For Colombia, see “IACHR and Its Office of the Special Rapporteur Installed in Quito Special Follow-Up Team for the Murder of Members of El Comercio’s Journalistic Team,” Press Release 165/18, IACHR Media Center, July 26, 2018, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2018/165.asp. For Nicaragua, see IACHR Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI), www.oas.org/en/iachr/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/meseni/default.asp. For Venezuela, see IACHR Special Follow-up Mechanism for Venezuela (MESEVE), www.oas.org/en/iachr/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/meseve/default.asp. On COVID-19, see IACHR, SACROI-COVID Rapid and Integrated Response Coordination Unit, www.oas.org/en/iachr/jsForm/?File=/en/iachr/sacroi_covid19/default.asp.
25. Out of twenty-five countries that have (at some point) accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, the only non-Spanish–speaking countries are Barbados, Brazil, Haiti, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
26. In 2005, and largely based on the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission and Court, the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice ruled the amnesty laws inapplicable. See Julio Héctor Simón et al. Case 17,768, Argentine Supreme Court of Justice, June 14, 2005. On the incompatibility of amnesty laws with international law, see Case of Las Hojas Massacre v. El Salvador (Report 26/92, Case 10.287, September 24, 1992), Uruguay (Report 29/92, Cases 10.029, 10.036, 10.145, 10.305, 10.372, 10.373, and 10.375, October 2, 1992); and Argentina (Report 28/92, Cases 10.147, 10.181, 10.240, 10.262, 10.309, and 10.311, October 2, 1992). Law 23.492 enacted on December 24, 1986, and Law 23.521 enacted on June 8, 1987, respectively. For the Peru case, see I/A Court H.R., Case of Barrios Altos v. Peru. Merits. Judgment March 14, 2001. Series C No. 75.
27. I/A Court H.R., Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 16, 2009. Series C No. 205.
28. I/A Court H.R., Case of Poblete Vilches v. Chile. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of March 8, 2018. Series C No. 349; I/A Court H.R., Case of Cuscul Pivaral et al. v. Guatemala. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of August 23, 2018. Series C No. 359; I/A Court H.R., Case of the National Association of Discharged and Retired Employees of the National Tax Administration Superintendence (ANCEJUB-SUNAT) v. Peru. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 21, 2019. Series C No. 394. I/A Court H.R., Case of the Indigenous Communities of the Lhaka Honhat (Our Land) Association v. Argentina. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of February 6, 2020. Series C No. 400.
29. See Silvia Serrano Guzmán, “El control de convencionalidad en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos” (2013). See also Ariel Dulitzky, “An Inter-American Constitutional Court? The Invention of the Conventionality Control by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” Texas International Law Journal 50, 1 (2015), pp. 45, 93.
30. In this decision, the Court asserted that “when a State has ratified an international treaty such as the American Convention, its judges, as part of the State, are also bound by such Convention. This forces them to see that all the effects of the provisions embodied in the Convention are not adversely affected by the enforcement of laws which are contrary to its purpose and that have not had any legal effects since their inception. In other words, the Judiciary must exercise a sort of ‘conventionality control’ between the domestic legal provisions which are applied to specific cases and the American Convention on Human Rights. To perform this task, the Judiciary has to take into account not only the treaty, but also the interpretation thereof made by the Inter-American Court, which is the ultimate interpreter of the American Convention.” See I/A Court H.R., Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of September 26, 2006. Series C No. 154, para. 124.
31. Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Approved by the Court at its Forty-Ninth Regular Session held from November 16 to 25, 2000, Art. 23.
32. See, for example, Cecilia Medina Quiroga, “Modificación de los reglamentos de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos y de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos al procedimiento de peticiones individuales ante la Corte,” in Universidad de Chile, Anuario de Derechos Humanos 7 (2011), p. 120.
33. See, for example, IACtHPR, Rules of Procedure (2010), Art. 35.1.f., which refers to the ability of the Commission to request the appointment of an expert witness only when “the Inter-American public order of human rights is affected in a significant manner.” Also, under Art. 52.3 the IACHR can only interrogate expert witnesses proposed by the other parties in the proceedings “if authorized by the Court upon receiving a well-grounded request therefore, when the Inter-American public order of human rights is affected in a significant manner and the statement in question regards a topic included in the statement of an expert witness offered by the Commission.”
34. Goldman, “History and Action,” p. 877.
35. In 2011 Ecuador proposed the creation of a new human rights forum within UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Integration of Ecuador, “Proposal for the Creation of a South American Human Rights Coordination Body.” See Gabriela Kletzel and Camila Barretto Maia, “The Challenge of Complementarity in Latin America’s New Institutional Architecture for Human Rights,” in The Inter-American Human Rights System: Changing Times, Ongoing Challenges, edited by César Rodríguez-Garavito and Nelson Camilo Sánchez León (Due Process of Law Foundation, 2016), pp. 39–40, www.dejusticia.org/en/publication/challenges-to-the-inter-american-system-of-human-rights/.
36. IACHR, “Indigenous Communities of the Xingu River Basin, Pará, Brazil,” PM-382/10, (April 1, 2011).
37. See Ana Maria Mondragón, “Corporate Impunity for Human Rights Violations in the Americas: The Inter-American System of Human Rights as an Opportunity for Victims to Achieve Justice,” Harvard International Law Journal 57 (Spring 2016), https://harvardilj.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/Ana_0708.pdf; see also Raisa Cetra and Jefferson Nascimento, “Counting Coins: Funding the Inter-American Human Rights System,” in Changing Times, Ongoing Challenges, pp. 84–5, and Victoria Amato, “Taking Stock of the Reflection on the Workings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” Due Process of Law Foundation, Aportes Magazine 5, 16 (June 2012), p. 5, http://dplf.org/sites/default/files/aportes_16_english_webfinal_0.pdf.
38. Amato, “Taking Stock,” p. 8.
39. IACHR, PM 406–11—Emilio Palacio, Carlos Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, Carlos Pérez Barriga, and César Pérez Barriga, Ecuador. See also “UN and IACHR Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression State Deep Concern over Decision to Affirm Judgment against Journalists in Ecuador,” IACHR Press Release R20/12, www.oas.org/en/iachr/expression/showarticle.asp?lID=1&artID=884.
40. IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Venezuela, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.118 doc. 4 rev. 2, December 29, 2003, www.cidh.org/countryrep/venezuela2003eng/intro.htm.
41. Ibid.
42. “El secretario de CIDH incomoda a gobiernos de Ecuador y Venezuela,” El Universo, April 2, 2012, www.eluniverso.com/2012/04/02/1/1355/secretario-cidh-incomoda-gobiernos-ecuador-venezuela.html/.
43. See “IACHR and Inter-American Court Appreciate General Assembly Decision on Budget Increase,” IACHR Press Release 83/12, www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2017/083.asp.
44. William F. Schulz and Sushma Raman, The Coming Good Society: Why New Realities Demand New Rights (Harvard University Press, 2020), pp. 127–30.
45. IACHR, “Corruption and Human Rights: Inter-American Standards” (2019). OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc.236/19, www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/CorruptionHR.pdf.
46. “Pompeo Cuts OAS Funds over Advocacy of Legal Abortion,” Washington Post, March 26, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-cuts-oas-funds-over-advocacy-of-legal-abortion/2019/03/26/4ea5314d-d7e0-48de-b636-e552447430b0_story.html?noredirect=on.
47. “Inter-American Human Rights Court Backs Same-Sex Marriage,” BBC News, January 10, 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-42633891.
48. Ana Chacób Mora, “The Evangelical Wave Hits Democracy in Costa Rica,” Open Democracy, March 20, 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/is-democracy-in-danger-in-costa-rica-too/
49. See, for example, Daniel Cerqueira, El Derecho a Un Medio Ambiente Sano en el marco normativo y jurisprudencia del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (Due Process of Law Foundation, 2020), p. 31, www.dplf.org/es/resources/el-derecho-un-medio-ambiente-sano-en-el-marco-normativo-y-jurisprudencia-del-sistema.
