The Inter-American Human Rights System and U.S.-Latin America Relations

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Draft October 2013

The Inter-American Human Rights System and U.S.-Latin America Relations

Par Engstrom

UCL Institute of the Americas

The Inter-American Human Rights System (the IAHRS) has been an integral part of the

regional institutional landscape of the Americas since the mid-20th

century. The regional

human rights system has evolved in the light of the specific conditions prevailing in the

region. A progressive development of regional human rights jurisprudence is reflected in the

way the system struggled in its adolescent form during the early period of the Cold War to

promote human rights in the region and how it judged the political calculations of transitional

governments. Such developments received a boost with the return to democratic rule in the

region and in this sense the direction of the Inter-American system as a whole became bound

up with the maintenance and progress of political democracy. But, of course, democratic rule

as such is not a guarantee for the respect of human rights, as the system has turned its

attention to the challenge of ensuring the quality of democratic rule. The system has

established the legal obligation under regional and international jurisprudence of states to

protect the rights of citizens, and in the light of the failure to do so, the international

obligation to hold states accountable. The Inter-American human rights system, therefore, has

gradually evolved into a transnationalized regime as the system has opened up space for

transnational political activity.1

Yet, the institutional development of the IAHRS needs to be understood in terms of the

broader historical and geopolitical context of US-Latin America relations, which continues to

shape the functioning of the system. Indeed, many view the IAHRS as an extension of US

foreign policy and argue that while the means of US foreign policy may have changed over

the years, the hegemonic presumption of US policymakers has essentially remained constant.

Others would point to the continuity of US expansionist ideology, historically embodied in

the idea of ‘manifest destiny’ that justifies US interventionist policies in Latin America.

These perceptions are enduring and continue to shape the legitimacy and effectiveness of the

IAHRS, as seen in controversies over the human rights record of Venezuela in recent years.

However, the IAHRS has never been an unambiguous, foreign policy tool for the US to

wield. First, this would be to underplay the important role that Latin American lawyers and

diplomats played in the early development of the international human rights regime, both at

the United Nations and regionally in the Americas. From their insistence on a full range of

rights, including socio-economic rights, to their lobbying for intrusive mandates for human

rights institutions to intervene in the domestic affairs of states, the positions of Latin

American government representatives have not necessarily reflected US policy preferences.

Second, and crucially, the IAHRS has developed over the years from a ‘classical’

intergovernmental regime into a transnational political space with a far-reaching mandate to

regulate domestic political norms and practices of regional states. The system has emerged,

from its roots as a government-run diplomatic entity with an ill-defined mandate to promote

1 For a fuller account see: Par Engstrom, “Transnational Human Rights and Democratization: Argentina and the

Inter-American Human Rights System (1976-2007)” (DPhil diss., University of Oxford, 2010), chapters 1-2.

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respect for human rights in the region, as a legal regime formally empowering citizens to

bring suit to challenge the domestic activities of their own governments. An independent

court and commission are invested with the mandate to respond to individual claims by

judging whether the application of domestic rules or legislation violates international

commitments. The access of individuals to the human rights regime has strengthened over

time as the system has evolved into a judicial regime with a procedural focus on the force of

legal argumentation and the generation of regional human rights jurisprudence. The gradual

erosion of state control in general, and US influence in particular, over the IAHRS is clearly

uneven and patchy, as the continuing reliance of the IAHRS on US funding unequivocally

illustrates. Still, there have been fundamental changes over the last few decades in particular,

and Latin American human rights actors, both non-governmental and governmental, have

played leading roles in these institutional changes.

Nonetheless, many of the challenges facing the IAHRS remain deeply embedded in the

shifting trends of US-Latin American relations. Indeed, the IAHRS is far from decoupled

from the broader relationship between the US and Latin America. This chapter seeks to

unpack this relationship and examine what a focus on the Inter-American Human Rights

System reveals about the character of US-Latin American relations. The first part of the

chapter highlights four key features of regional inter-state relations that continue to shape

institutional developments: (i) traditionally state-based and elite-driven process of regional

institutionalisation on the basis of ambitious objectives; (ii) the combination of

interdependence and inequality that characterises the relationship between the US and Latin

America and the Caribbean; (iii) enduring tensions between principles of sovereignty and

norms and practices of intervention; and (iv) the multifaceted gaps between promotion of

human rights abroad and deeply problematic human rights record at home on the one hand,

and, on the other, declaratory commitment to abstract human rights principles on paper and

violating practices at home. The second part traces the changes and continuities in inter-state

dynamics that have shaped the operation of the IAHRS and its capacity to induce human

rights change since the period of the Cold War through to the period of institutional

rejuvenation of the 1990s. The final part highlights some of the many challenges facing the

IAHRS and how the character of contemporary US-Latin American relations continues to

shape the system’s capacity to address these challenges.

I. Institutional Characteristics of the Inter-American Human Rights System

Attempts to organize regional states into an international cooperative body have their origins

in the era of national independence movements of the early nineteenth century.2 The adoption

of the founding Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948 should

therefore be seen in the light of over a century of Inter-American relations that shaped the

norms and principles adopted in the OAS Charter. Since its creation the OAS has come to

encapsulate in a general sense the regional system of inter-state cooperation in which the

Inter-American human rights regime remains embedded. This section considers the

institutional context within which regional norms and practices pertaining to human rights

have developed, examines how this development has been fundamentally shaped by the

character of US-Latin American relations, and highlights four key dimensions of the regional

2 Louise Fawcett, 'The Origins and Development of Regional Ideas in the Americas' in Louise Fawcett and

Mónica Serrano, eds., Regionalism and Governance in the Americas: Continental Drift (Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2005).

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human rights system as enshrined in the OAS Charter and in subsequently adopted human

rights agreements.

1. Normative ambitions

Since the early period of independence of Latin American republics, regional governments

have aspired to a regional system of cooperation based on ambitious objectives. Latin

American diplomats and political elites have historically made repeated appeals to regional

solidarity based on shared culture and values. Simón Bolívar called in 1826 for a regional

confederation of states to support democracy,3 and there have been frequent invocations that

Latin America’s particular identity should undergird institutional cooperation between the

region’s independent republics. Six International American Conferences were held from 1889

to 1928 marking the development of an embryonic institutional framework for Inter-

American relations that sought to put in place a stable framework for the management of

regional relations.

It is important to note that much of this early process of regional institutionalisation was

driven by Latin American diplomats and international lawyers. The Seventh Conference in

1933 adopted a convention on the rights and duties of states, which formulated the principle

of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states, whilst at the Eight Conference in 1938

resolutions calling for the defence of human rights were adopted. This theme was taken up at

the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace in 1945 when the Inter-

American Juridical Committee was requested to draft a declaration concerning human rights

protection.4 Hence, before the adoption of the OAS Charter in 1948 there existed a long-

standing and widespread acceptance of human rights principles in the region. In particular, as

Forsythe highlights, “a small number of Latin states in the 1940s tried to exert moral

leadership in support of precise legal obligations and a capacity for regional action on human

rights. This handful of Latin states - Panama, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican

Republic, Cuba, and Venezuela - also pushed for binding human rights commitments at the

San Francisco conference which led to the establishment of the United Nations.”5 Moreover,

these regional developments reflected national developments through which independent

republics across the region had adopted liberal constitutions incorporating an ambitious range

of human rights principles and protections.6

2. Interdependence and inequality

The second feature to be noted concerns the particular combination of interdependence and

inequality that historically has characterised regional inter-state relations. The ambitious

institutional developments occurred against a background of stark power asymmetries and an

increasingly powerful and expansionist United States. On the one hand the rise of the US had

the effect that the conception of closer cooperation between independent Latin American

3 David Forsythe, ‘Human Rights, The United States and the Organization of American States’, Human Rights

Quarterly, vol. 13, pp.75-6. 4 The Conference also discussed the ‘Larreta Proposal’, after the Uruguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Eduardo Rodriguez Larreta, which proposed to the American governments to suspend or restrict the principle of

non-intervention in the internal affairs of another country and called for multilateral action to defend democracy

and human rights. The proposal was never formally approved. 5 David Forsythe, ‘Human Rights, The United States and the Organization of American States’, Human Rights

Quarterly, vol. 13, pp.75-6. 6 Paolo G. Carozza, ‘From Conquest to Constitutions: Retrieving a Latin American Tradition of the Idea of

Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, (2003), pp.281-313.

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states based on regional commonalities gradually lost out to the US-led regional order that

was formalized with the creation of the OAS in 1948.7 On the other, the stark disparity of

power combined with periodic interventions led to efforts to institutionalise safeguards

against US intervention. As Hurrell points out “[i]rrespective of the policy actually chosen,

its very presence and the possibility of US action have always been factors in the minds of

Latin American governments. It is in the nature of hegemony that actions and reactions will

be influenced by expectations of what the United States may or may not do.”8 In other words,

the OAS institutionalised the principle of non-intervention as a legal safeguard against US

hegemony.

And yet, close proximity of Latin American states to the US, particularly when viewed from

Central America and the Caribbean, combined with regional material interdependence and

dramatic disparities in wealth, have led to frequent appeals and elite demands on the US to

play a more active role to provide collective goods. Beyond the US security framework of

strategic denial of extra-regional powers, US policymakers have traditionally only

contemplated limited support measures for economic development (e.g. Alliance for

Progress), and most certainly nothing similar to aid efforts extended to other regions, such as

Europe after World War II. This combination of inequality and interdependence has given

rise to deep ambivalence on behalf of Latin American elites when it comes to the role of US.9

It has also shaped deep currents of political thought in Latin America that view all US

initiatives towards the region as irredeemably imperialist in character. It is exactly this

combination of interdependence and inequality that makes regional political arrangements so

difficult to manage.10

3. Sovereignty and intervention

A third dimension concerns the normative and institutional tensions between state

sovereignty and the legitimate scope of intervention in the domestic affairs of regional states.

Given the historical circumstances of regional power disparity in which American states were

formed, certain principles – most notably self-determination, the right to independence, and

freedom from intervention – came to guide their attempts of regional cooperation. However,

these norms have developed in parallel with those of democracy and human rights, leading to

inevitable institutional tensions. The state representatives at the Bogota Conference in 1948

institutionalised human rights norms through several resolutions among which the original

OAS Charter and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man are the most

significant. Yet, the same Conference also adopted a resolution on the ‘Preservation and

Defence of Democracy in America’, and governments agreeing to the resolution resolved to

take any necessary measures to ensure that “the free and sovereign right of their peoples to

govern themselves in accordance with their domestic aspirations” would not be violated.

Certainly, it was not only weaker Latin American countries concerned with external

intervention into domestic affairs that opposed intrusive human rights mandates. Indeed, both

at the San Francisco conference that adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and

at the OAS, Latin American diplomats and international lawyers played prominent roles in

7 Tensions between ideas of ‘pan-Americanism’ and ‘Bolivarianism’ with regards to understandings of regional

order have resurfaced strongly in recent years. 8 Andrew Hurrell, ‘Security in Latin America’, International Affairs, vol.74, no.3, (1998), p.531.

9 Robert A. Pastor, Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Latin America and the Caribbean

(Boulder, Col: Westview, 2001). 10

Andrew Hurrell, ‘Security in Latin America’, International Affairs, vol.74, no.3, (1998), p.546

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pushing for ambitious human rights mandates.11

Similarly, Latin American government

representatives were occasionally willing to push for intervention, as seen, for example, in

efforts by Uruguay in 1946 to promote the ‘Larreta Doctrine’, which called for intervention

in Argentina. But, although the US endorsed human rights in principle, it did not accept any

precise legal obligations that could legitimate international action to enforce these principles.

As documented by Forsythe: “[i]n 1948, only six of twenty-one states, not including the

United States, wanted the American Declaration to be part of the OAS Charter and hence

binding international law. And only eight of twenty voting states, again not including the

United States, wanted a binding convention on human rights.”12

4. El derecho and el hecho

The final feature to note concerns the gap between rhetoric and practice. Support for

democracy and human rights has historically figured prominently on the regional agenda;

albeit primarily in rhetorical form. Also on the declaratory level, regional institutions have

been based on the idea that the universal recognition of fundamental rights is a necessary

condition for international life and the establishment of democratic societies. There are two

dimensions to the gap between declaratory adherence to human rights principles by regional

states and the commitment of member-States to convert these ideals into practice.

First there is the gap between abstract principles declaratorily embraced on the one hand, and

actual mechanisms set up to ensure the enforcement of these principles. With the creation of

the OAS an American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (the Declaration) –

preceding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – was adopted. This directory

of rights took the form of a declaration with the intention to eventually press towards a

multilateral treaty,13

though, clearly, the declaration was not intended to be binding on

signatory states.14

Second, there is also the gap between principles diplomatically supported

in international fora, and reluctance, at best, to ensure the domestic implementation of these

principles. Throughout its existence the OAS – from which the regional human rights system

derives its authority – has been comprised of member states many of which at numerous

occasions have been governed by repressive regimes with scant regard for human rights. As

Farer notes in comparison with the European human rights regime, the IAHRS has had a

wider mandate than its European counterpart, but while the European human rights regime

“largely reinforced national restraints on the exercise of executive and legislative power”, the

‘Latin American’ regime “was attempting to impose on governments restraints without

domestic parallel.”15

Moreover, these features have deep historical roots since “[b]eing the

children of the French and American revolutions, the Latin American political elites spoke

the language of rights since the early struggles for Independence”16

; a general discourse that

11

Mary Ann Glendon, ‘The Forgotten Crucible: The Latin American Influence on the Universal Rights Idea’,

Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 16, 2003. 12

David Forsythe, ‘Human Rights, The United States and the Organization of American States’, Human Rights

Quarterly, vol. 13, p.77 13

David J. Padilla, 'The Inter-American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights' Georgia

Journal of International and Comparative Law, vol. 20, no. 2, 1990. p.396. 14

Thomas Buergenthal and Dinah Shelton, Protecting Human Rights in the Americas: Cases and Materials

(Strasbourg: International Institute of Human Rights, 1995). p.39. 15

Farer, 'Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime', pp.511-12. 16

Francisco Panizza, 'Human Rights: Global Culture and Social Fragmentation' Bulletin of Latin American

Research, vol. 12, no. 2, 1993. p.206.

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has not prevented the structural denial of those rights on part of governing elites across the

region.17

II. Changes and Continuities in the Development of the Inter-American Human Rights

System

This section traces the development of the IAHRS from its origins as a state-based system

deeply embedded in the political dynamics of inter-state relations during the Cold War to the

transnational system that has emerged in recent decades. It examines how the changes and

continuities in the character of US-Latin American relations have shaped the operation of the

system and its capacity to affect human rights politics.

1. The IAHRS and the Cold War

Since the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine, US policy towards its region had sought to keep

extra-hemispheric powers out of Latin America. After 1948 this was reframed within the

global logic of the Cold War based on the strategic denial of advantage to the Soviet Union.

Following the adoption of the OAS Charter and the American Declaration on the Rights and

Duties of Man, the Cold War would come to fundamentally shape the IAHRS for the first

four decades of its existence.

Indeed, the IAHRS occasionally played a useful role in the foreign policy of states. In

particular, the early period of the IAHRS was characterized by a permissive context for a

state-driven regional human rights system. The US was concerned to keep left-leaning

governments out of Latin America and to oust those that did emerge. In the build-up to the

US-sponsored overthrow of the Arbenz regime in Guatemala in June 1954, the Conference of

OAS member-states held in Caracas affirmed a necessary relationship between a system

based on democracy and the protection of human rights.18

The Conference adopted a

declaration that affirmed the solidarity of hemispheric states against the “intervention of

international communism”. The declaration was adopted at insistence of the US, against the

dissenting voices of Argentina, Mexico (both abstaining) and Guatemala (voted against).19

It was, however, partly in response to the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, and,

particularly, the gathering of momentum of the Cuban revolution that the policy of the US

towards Latin America hardened. This had significant implications for the IAHRS. Against a

political background of concerns by the Venezuelan government over the Trujillo

government’s attempts to foment unrest in Venezuela, and the Eisenhower administration’s

increasing concern over developments in Cuba, the OAS agreed on a compromise to establish

a Convention and Commission for the protection of human rights.20

The ensuing Santiago

declaration called for, inter alia, the creation of an Inter-American Human Rights

Commission, and asserted that the lack of respect for human rights and democracy had been a

17

Clearly, these discrepancies between rhetoric and practice are not unique to Latin American countries. See,

Michael Ignatieff (ed.), American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton University Press, 2005). 18

The Conference held in March 1954 adopted the Declaration of Caracas, which stated that an effective means

of strengthening democratic institutions is through the respect of human rights without any discrimination. 19

Available at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam10.asp. Last consulted on 3 October 2013. 20


Quarterly, vol. 13, p.82-3

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam10.asp

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major cause of unrest in the region, and that anti-democratic regimes were in violation of the

OAS Charter endangering peaceful relations in the region.21

As a result, the IACHR was created with the mandate to use the standards in the Declaration

to evaluate the conduct of states in matters of human rights.22

However, from its inception,

the Commission had to operate in a regional environment where human rights often were

given scant regard. The Commission was, in other words, established within the OAS

framework to promote human rights before respect of the rights became a precise and clear

legal obligation; that is, constructed to promote but not given the authority or the procedures

to protect.23

The Commission, as formally envisaged by most OAS member-states, was set up

to make general studies and promote human rights education. The US, whose main concern

centred on diplomatic pressures being exerted on the Dominican Republic, and, particularly,

Cuba, abstained on the vote creating the Commission. The Commission was, in other words,

created out of a political compromise in response to Venezuelan demands about the Trujillo

regime on the one hand, and US concern about Cuba on the other, whilst ensuring other

states’ concerns about a too intrusive human rights Commission were met.24

Therefore, the

early focus and activism of the Commission on Cuba and the Dominican Republic allowed

for an acquiescent Eisenhower administration.25

It also allowed the members of the

Commission a permissive initial political context to consolidate the institutional practices of

the Commission.

During the Kennedy administration the OAS received some support for action on human

rights. Through the Kennedy administration’s flagship initiative towards Latin America, the

Alliance for Progress, the US sought to ‘revolutionise the counter-revolution’. The overriding

aims were to prevent communism (through military assistance and training in

counterinsurgency techniques) and to promote democracy, which during the 1960s was

understood to hinge on poverty alleviation (through a package of modernising reforms,

including land reform). Between 1961 and 1963 the U.S. suspended economic and/or broke

off diplomatic relations with several countries which had dictatorships, including Argentina,

the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru. But these suspensions

were imposed only temporarily, for periods of only three weeks to six months. Moreover, the

reforming drive by the US during the Kennedy administration, on its own terms, was both

ineffective and short-lived. During the 1960s thirteen constitutional governments in Latin

America were replaced by military dictatorships. And in March 1964, under President

Johnson, the US gave its approval to a military coup in Brazil, and was prepared to more

actively intervene if required through ‘Operation Brother Sam’. In addition, in 1965 the US

21

The Fifth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in August 1959 called for the establishment

of a Convention and Commission for the protection of human rights and adopted the Declaration of Santiago.

The Declaration states that “harmony among the American Republics can be effective only insofar as human

rights and fundamental freedoms are a reality […].” 22

The Commission was intended to fulfil what the Charter stated as its principal function – “to promote the

observance and protection of human rights and to serve as a consultative organ of the Organization in these

matters”. Article 111 of the original Charter, Article 106 of the Charter as amended by the Protocol of Managua

in 1993, and entered into force in 1996. Medina notes that the Commission was “originally conceived as a study

group with abstract investigations in the field of human rights.” Medina, 'Inter-American Commission on

Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights', p.440. 23

Carlos Garcia Bauer, 'The Observance of Human Rights and the Structure for Their Protection in the Western

Hemisphere' American University Law Review, vol. 30, no. 14, 1980-81. p.15. 24


Quarterly, vol. 13, p.82-3. 25


Quarterly, vol. 13, p.84.

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dispatched 24,000 troops to the Dominican Republic in response to political turmoil and to

prevent what the Johnson administration perceived as a potential ‘second Cuba’.

In short, the institutional development of the IAHRS in the early years was fundamentally

shaped by the character of US-Latin American relations as defined by the Cold War. It is

important to stress at this conjuncture however, that, intermittently, other states than the US

have found it useful to channel their foreign policies through the IAHRS; occasionally even

to challenge US policy preferences. For example, in 1977 General Omar Torrijos leveraged

the IACHR to counter accusations of human rights violations made by his opponents in the

US Senate arguing against the treaty ceding control of the Panama Canal. Similarly, the

Sandinista government following the fall of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua invited the

IACHR in 1981 to counter US charges of human rights violations.

However, the state-based logic of the system limited its capacity to induce human rights

change. Certainly, most OAS member states – suspicious of the prospects for intervention in

the name of human rights supervision – were more comfortable with a system mandated to

carry out general studies of human rights than if it would deal with specific situations of

human rights violations. As the IACHR’s mute response to the systematic human rights

abuses that followed the military coup in Brazil indicates, the regional human rights system

maintained a low profile in the region. This is further illustrated by the limited number of

appeals to the Commission from nascent human rights organisations in the region even a

decade after the creation of the Commission.26

There were, nonetheless, significant institutional developments of the IAHRS, despite the

lack of support from OAS member-states. The Commission’s competence was formalized in

1965 with an OAS resolution that authorized the Commission to ‘examine’ isolated human

rights violations, with a particular focus on certain rights.27

In so doing, the Commission’s

activities concerning the handling of individual communications were invested with a legal

base. The insertion of a legal element in a procedure that up to then had been highly political,

introduced in the Inter-American system the “idea that human rights could also be protected

by means of a quasi-judicial procedure.”28

Hence, the Commission assumed the practice of

conducting detailed investigations and publicizing serious violations, with the intention of

applying pressure on member states to respect the human rights set forth in the Declaration.

The 1967 amendment of the OAS Charter further enhanced the status of the Commission by

directing it for the first time to ‘protect’ as well as ‘promote’ human rights. However, neither

the Commission nor the human rights it was supposed to protect were endowed with a sound

26

Tom Farer, ‘The Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime: No Longer a Unicorn, Not Yet an Ox’,

Human Rights Quarterly, vol.19, no.3 (1997), pp.526-7. 27

OAS General Assembly Resolution XXII (1965) mandated the Commission to give special attention to the

observance of human rights referred to in the American Declaration in articles I (right to life, liberty and

personal security), II (right to equality before law), III (right to religious freedom and worship), IV (right to

freedom of investigation, opinion, expression and dissemination), XVIII (right to fair trial), XXV (right to

protection from arbitrary arrest), and XXVI (right to due process of law). Hence, the Commission’s mandate

was restricted to a primary focus on political and civil rights thereby diminishing its mandate to protect

economic, social and cultural rights. Moreover, the further restriction was added that the Commission had to

establish whether domestic remedies had been fully exhausted before examining petitions submitted to it.

However, the resolution also enhanced Commission’s authority to seek information from and make

recommendation to member governments. 28

Medina Quiroga, The Battle of Human Rights, pp.83-5.

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legal basis of a treaty until the American Convention on Human Rights (the Convention)

entered into force in 1978.29

The military regimes that took power in Southern Cone countries in the beginning of the

1970s led to an increasing activism by the IAHRS. The decade between the adoption of the

Convention in 1969 and its entry into force in 1978 marked the descent of Latin America into

the abyss of systematic human rights violations on the part of states determined to violently

force through extreme social restructuring.30

The nature of the oppression that spread over the

region, involving outright declarations of war by military regimes against alleged

subversives, invoking ‘national security’ when justifying prolonged states of emergency, and

the cloak of secrecy surrounding the methods used by state agents – in the form of

clandestine torture centres and the practice of forced ‘disappearances’ – effectively rendered

the existing mechanisms for individual petition to the Commission ineffective.31

The main

objective of the Commission was therefore not to investigate isolated violations but to

document and report on the occurrence of gross systematic violations in order to exercise

pressure to improve the general situation of human rights in the country concerned. Through

on-site investigations and country reports, the Commission’s main contribution took the form

of an indirect impact on norm-making, in particular in connection with the rebuttal of the

national security doctrine.32

A more active Commission was partly a result of domestic changes in the US, which gave

rise to a more permissive context for human rights activism. The quagmire in Vietnam and

the growing momentum behind the Watergate scandal, together with US involvement in the

coup against the Allende government in Chile, precipitated a discernible shift in US foreign

policy. CIA involvement in covert operations came under increasing congressional and public

scrutiny, which led to foreign policy being increasingly reviewed by Congress. A number of

laws were passed restricting the US executive’s sphere of independent action. This also led to

some support for the IACHR, with, for instance, the US Congress extending additional

funding to the Commission.33

Moreover, the 1970s also witnessed the emergence of

nongovernmental human rights organisations (HROs) as a response to authoritarian military

dictatorships and the failure of democratic states to extend support to victims of human rights

abuses. As the burgeoning international human rights network built upon international legal

29

The Convention was adopted at San José, Costa Rica, on 22 November 1969, and entered into force on 18

July 1978, and currently has 25 States Parties with some notable exceptions. The United States signed the

Convention in 1977 but has not ratified it; Canada is not a signatory and most of the English-speaking

Caribbean countries are not signatories to the Convention. With regards to these countries, the IACHR is

evaluating their human rights records in the light of their international human rights commitments under the

American Declaration of which they are all signatories. Douglass Cassel, 'A United States View of the Inter-

American Court of Human Rights' in Antonio A. Cançado Trindade, ed., The Modern World of Human Rights

(San José: Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, 1996). 30

Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American

Politics (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973). 31

For examples of blank denial of facts alleged in petitions see IACHR Reports 20/78, 21/78, 22/78, and 27/78

(Argentina), and IACHR’s Annual Report 1979-80. 32

The Commission conducted on-site investigations in Chile (July-August 1974) and Argentina (September

1979) that resulted in a series of country reports in the case of Chile (1974, 1976, 1977) and a single report on

Argentina (1980) in which the systematic use of torture and ‘forced disappearances’ were documented. An oft-

repeated example of the influence of the Commission is the 1978 Nicaragua report that effectively delegitimised

the Somoza regime. Padilla, 'The Inter-American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights',

p.398. 33


Quarterly, vol. 13, p.85.

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norms already in place, it aimed to influence international opinion through the diffusion of

information and the denunciation of rights-abusing governments.34

During the Carter administration the increasing domestic political opposition in the US and

the emergence of HROs as vocal pressure groups internationally converged in important

ways. Combined with the Carter administration’s efforts to mark a break with the past, US

human rights policies shifted considerably.35

However, although the Carter administration’s

human rights policies were frequently channelled through the IACHR, the actual immediate

impact of these pressures was fairly limited.36

This was largely due to the importance of

domestic forces in explaining human rights change. Consider the case of the IACHR visit to

Argentina in 1979. Following the 1976 coup, the US State department appealed to Argentina

on behalf of US citizens who were arrested or abducted, and in December 1976 the State

Department informed US Congress that the “subject of human rights has been raised

repeatedly with representatives of the Government of Argentina during 1976 by the

Department of State and our embassy in Buenos Aires.”37

The US position hardened soon

after Carter took over the US presidency in January 1977, and “Argentina came to symbolize

Carter’s confrontational approach to human rights.”38

US State Department officials visited

Argentina on several occasions to discuss the human rights situation, culminating in

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s visit in November 1977, when he submitted a list of

thousands of disappeared persons to the Argentine government, and Under Secretary of State

David Newsom’s visit in early 1978. Moreover, in July 1977, Congress cut off all military aid

and sales to Argentina (although this would not come into effect until September 1978) and

in July 1978, the State Department indicated that it could not recommend Export-Import

(EXIM) Bank financing.39

In addition, during the same period the US began abstain voting on

loans to Argentina from the Inter-American Development Bank. In September 1978,

however, State Department approved EXIM bank financing, apparently in exchange of

Argentine government acceptance of the visit of the IACHR.40

It may initially seem puzzling that the Argentine junta would accept a visit by the IACHR.41

Yet, evidence suggests that by late 1978 the junta had eliminated the political opposition and

34

Kathryn Sikkink, 'The Emergence, Evolution, and Effectiveness of the Latin American Human Rights

Network' in Elizabeth Jelin and Eric Hershberg, eds., Constructing Democracy: Human Rights, Citizenship and

Society in Latin America Westview, 1997). 35

Forsythe lists a number of key policies that had direct bearing on the US relationship with the IAHRS:

“signing the American Convention on Human Rights; supporting a diplomatic offensive to obtain other

signatures and ratifications; publicly castigating human rights violators such as Brazil, Guatemala, Uruguay, and

Argentina; supporting increased appropriations for the Commission; working closely with the activist American

president of the Commission, Thomas J. Farer; manipulating some US bilateral foreign assistance in the name of

rights; taking human rights into account in voting in the InterAmerican Development Bank and other

multilateral banks; engaging in quiet diplomacy on behalf of the victims of politics; and enlisting the aid of the

Commission, among other OAS organs, in an attempt to rid Nicaragua of President Anastasio Somoza”. David

Forsythe, ‘Human Rights, The United States and the Organization of American States’, Human Rights

Quarterly, vol. 13, p.90. See also: Tom Farer, ‘The Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime: No

Longer a Unicorn, Not Yet an Ox’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol.19, no.3 (1997), p.537-8. 36

For a medium-term perspective on the institutional changes instituted under Carter, see Kathryn Sikkink,

Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America, (Cornell University Press, 2004). 37

Weissbrodt and Bartolomei, 'Effectiveness of International Human Rights Pressures', p.1020. 38

Guest, Behind the Disappearances, p.xiv. 39

Weissbrodt and Bartolomei, 'Effectiveness of International Human Rights Pressures'. 40

Guest, Behind the Disappearances, p.172. 41

Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1981); Sikkink, Mixed Signals. The visit of the members and staff of the IACHR for two

weeks in September 1979 generated considerable attention both domestically and internationally as it put the

11

had therefore already begun to modify its repressive politics. Even before the IACHR visit,

the Argentine authorities seem to have been improving the physical conditions of

confinement for political detainees and reports of ill treatment had declined. President Videla,

as the head of the military junta, appears to have calculated that the regime would have been

able to control the findings of the IACHR and turn it to the regime’s advantage. This had

generated a split in the military junta between ‘hardliners’ on the one hand and those junta

members who were in favour of a softening of its rule and stressed the importance of

improving the international standing of the regime. By accepting the IACHR visit the ‘soft-

liners’ seem to have prevailed in the inner struggles between different factions of the military

regime. In terms of its impact on the human rights situation in Argentina, after the IACHR’s

visit, the number of disappearances appeared to decrease. However, the exact cause of the

military regime’s apparent cessation of the use of disappearances following the visit remains

disputed. Kathryn Sikkink, for example, argues that the marked improvement in the human

rights situation in Argentina was due to international pressures and the result of a change in

the political climate following the IACHR visit.42

Yet, as already noted, there is evidence that

suggests that the military’s declared ‘war against subversion’ was already near completion

such that by the time of the IACHR visit no further disappearances were deemed necessary.

Indeed, in September 1979 the military government had claimed that it had won the war

against the ‘subversives’. On this account, if the IACHR visit had any immediate effect at all

it was to strengthen the position of the junta’s ‘hardliners’ in the short term at least as they

were proven right that the visit would backfire and generate bad publicity for the regime.

In the end, the IACHR report on the human rights situation in Argentina was not acted upon

when eventually presented to the OAS General Assembly in November 1980.43

As the new

Reagan administration explicitly distanced itself from Carter’s human rights policies, US

relations with the Argentine military junta improved considerably. This, combined with

active diplomacy on the part of Argentine OAS diplomats and support given by the Argentine

OAS Secretary General at the time, Alejandro Orfila (1975-84), led to inaction on the part of

the OAS. However, while the internal politics of the OAS may have prevented the

condemnation of Argentina by its member-states, for the IACHR itself the Argentine country

visit represents a defining moment in the development of its identity as an independent and

operational human rights institution.44

By the beginning of the 1980s the Reagan administration’s heightened Cold War rhetoric and

its belligerent policies refuelled conflicts in Central America. As outlined in the Kirkpatrick

doctrine the US sought the rapprochement with military regimes in Latin America. This was

accompanied with marked hostility toward multilateral institutions.45

The Central American

spotlight on the human rights record of the military regime. The IACHR met with President Videla, other

government officials, representatives of various political parties, officials of recognized trade unions,

representatives of Argentine human rights organizations, and lawyers. Before the Commission visited Argentina

it received briefings from representatives of several human rights groups, and during its visit the Commission

collected numerous testimonies about violations of human rights from local human rights organizations. 42

Sikkink, Mixed Signals. 43

IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Argentina, 11 April 1980. 44

The IACHR had conducted very few country visits before Argentina and the visit set a precedent for the

IACHR in terms of its modus operandi. However, for some of the short-term negative repercussions for the

IACHR following the publication of the report, see Weissbrodt and Bartolomei, 'Effectiveness of International

Human Rights Pressures'. 45

Farer highlights the contrast with the Carter years: “Where the Carter Administration had seen inter-

governmental institutions, whether regional or global, as contributors to global order, its successor was inclined

to view them as impediments to the exercise of power in the national interest.” Tom Farer, ‘The Rise of the

12

conflicts and massive human rights violations highlighted therefore both the limits of the

IACHR’s strategy of exposure and its deep embedment in broader US-Latin American

relations. As Farer notes, such a strategy “worked most effectively either when the human

rights violators relied on internal support from groups not wholly insensitive to moral claims

or international public opinion or when it positively affected the tone and substance of great

power diplomacy.”46

Indeed, the explosion of human rights violations in Central America

(and the murder of US citizens in the region) led to increased public concern and

congressional scrutiny in the US. In practice, however, the country-specific laws adopted and

aimed at conditioning US aid on human rights performance were weakly enforced. And, in

any event, the second Reagan administration either ignored or circumvented legislation

referring to human rights conditionality for foreign aid in an attempt to reassert executive

control over foreign policy.

2. The IAHRS and democratisation

The end of the Cold War in the regional context of the Americas constituted a combination of

significant changes as well as continuities. On the one hand, as the 1980s was drawing to a

close, throughout Latin America authoritarian regimes began to be replaced with

democratically elected governments. Democratic values became more widely shared across

Latin America than at any time since the start of the Cold War. The instruments of collective

action available to regional institutions became more powerful, and were combined with a

pervasive set of beliefs that external actors could contribute to the promotion of democracy.47

Tolerance for such external action also increased dramatically.48

Clearly, the emergence of a

regional democracy norm should be understood in the context of the end of the Cold War that

altered the geopolitical landscape of the Americas and led to changes in security perceptions

by US policy-makers in particular. In the immediate post-Cold War period the promotion and

defense of democracy became, in the words of one participant, “foreign policy priorities”49

for the countries of the region. And, yet, on the other hand, despite the regional

institutionalization that gained considerable pace throughout the 1990s, and which saw an

unprecedented number of declaratory commitments in support of representative democracy in

the region, the fundamental geopolitical asymmetries that characterise Inter-American

relations persisted and hence the suspicions of interventionist policy agendas remained. In

other words, the overall context of US-Latin American relations did not experience as

profound changes as the dominant policy discourse of the 1990s confidently proclaimed. The

transformation of the security environment was far from complete as concerns with terrorism

and the war of drugs expanded significantly. Moreover, the transformation of the global

economy increased the vulnerability of many economically weaker countries in Latin

America.

However, with the transition to democracy there was an increasing willingness among states

to formally declare adherence to international standards. This can be seen in the increasing

number of ratifications of the American Convention and the increasing acceptance of the

Inter-American Human Rights Regime: No Longer a Unicorn, Not Yet an Ox’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol.19,

no.3 (1997), pp.541-2 46

Farer, 'Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime', p.541. See also Sikkink, Mixed Signals. 47

President Clinton’s ‘democratic enlargement’ doctrine represents an articulation of these beliefs. 48

Tom Farer (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1996). 49

Heraldo Muñoz, 'The Right to Democracy in the Americas', Journal of Interamerican Studies and World

Affairs, vol.40, no.1, 1998.

13

Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.50

During the period of authoritarian regimes, none of the

great malefactors – Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Paraguay – were

parties to the Convention, and all were subject to multiple cases before or of investigations

initiated by the Commission. Some newly democratizing states used the IAHRS to

consolidate democracy at home (most consciously Argentina under Alfonsín), and to signal a

break with the past. Hence, the significant institutional strengthening of the regional human

rights system during the 1990s is not merely explained by the changing character of US-Latin

American relations, but also by domestic political changes in democratizing states in Latin

America.51

The institutional strengthening and normative expansion of the Inter-American human rights

system occurred against a background of region-wide processes of democratization. In a

region where military coups used to be acceptable behaviour and part of the political game52

,

the emergence of a robust regional democracy norm is a remarkable development in itself.

With the adoption of the Cartagena Protocol in 1985 – which amended the OAS Charter – the

member states proclaimed the promotion and consolidation of representative democracy as an

“essential purpose” of the organization.53

It was, however, the 20th

General Assembly (GA),

held in Asunción, Paraguay, in 1990, which marked the beginning of an emerging

commitment to translate declarations into practice. At the GA meeting the OAS Secretary

General was requested to establish the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD), which

was mandated to provide states with assistance in preserving and strengthening democratic

institutions and procedures. This was followed up in June 1991 at the 21st General Assembly

in Santiago, Chile, where the ‘Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the

Inter-American System’ was adopted54

, and Resolution 1080, authorized states to meet

quickly and “to adopt any decisions deemed appropriate, in accordance with the Charter and

international law” in response to authoritarian reversals in any state. Although no concrete

50

Argentina ratified the Convention in 1984 and accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in the same year.

Uruguay followed suit in 1985, Paraguay 1989 (acceptance of jurisdiction of Court in 1993), Chile in 1990, and

Brazil 1992 (Court’s jurisdiction accepted in 1998). In contrast, Pasqualucci argues that countries such as Peru

and Guatemala appear to have ratified the Convention as a gesture without a firm intent to comply with its

provisions. Jo M. Pasqualucci, 'Preliminary Objections before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights:

Legitimate Issues and Illegitimate Tactics' Virginia Journal of International Law, vol. 40, no. 1, 1999-2000. p.6.

But, although there is no mechanical equivalence between ratification and compliance, ratification nevertheless

signals the importance for democratizing states attached to the formal convergence with international human

rights norms. 51

Although the spread of elected governments marked a significant improvement in the condition of human

rights, cases of indisputable and grave violations continued to arrive to the Commission. Also, in the dealing

with formally democratic governments, there was the expectation of a measure of cooperation with the system,

thereby substituting for outright denial and rejection “open legal defense of their position on questions of fact

and law.” Pressures on the Inter-American system also came from the human rights community that, in an

increasing legal environment, demanded more from the Commission than a simple conclusion in favour of the

victims they were representing. As Farer notes, “[t]hey wanted injunctions and reparations which they could

secure only from the Inter-American Court.” In other words, under pressure from “commentators, lawyers, and

governments, the Commission […] gradually [began] to move toward a somewhat more case-oriented existence

and correspondingly to generate much more business for the Court.” Farer, 'Rise of the Inter-American Human

Rights Regime'. 52

Ellen L. Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink, 'International Human Rights Law and Practice in Latin America'

International Organization, vol. 54, no. 3, 2000. p.658. 53

The 1985 amendment reiterated the Organization’s foundational objective “to promote and consolidate

representative democracy” although it was qualified with the usual caveat: “with due respect for the principle of

non-intervention.” 54

The Santiago Commitment also set up a general agenda for action for the 1990s on a broad range of other

issues, including the reduction of economic and social inequalities, the promotion of trade liberalization, and

consultations “on hemispheric security in light of new conditions.”

14

measures for the OAS to employ in cases of an “interruption” were agreed upon, this marked

a step away by OAS member-states from its traditional stance on non-intervention.

Nevertheless, resolution 1080 defines representative democracy as an exercise of sovereignty,

and as an “indispensable condition for the stability, peace, and development of the region”.

The Santiago declaration, therefore, marks a change in the definition of intervention, which

continued to be illegal when carried out unilaterally, but accepted as a multilateral

mechanism.55

In particular, the Summits of the Americas procedure emerged as an important forum

advancing the regional democracy agenda. Originating as a proposal from the United States,

the Summit process as initiated in 1994 took place outside the framework of the OAS.

Although this initiative was clearly in part motivated by a perception that the OAS was in

need of a profound reform in light of what was considered to be the new circumstances of the

region, the Summit procedure gradually became incorporated within the official OAS remit.56

Since the first Summit of the Americas in Miami (1994) the American states have sought to

advance the idea of a ‘community of democratic societies’.57

The Santiago Summit (1998)

developed on this idea while the Summit of Quebec City in April 2001 – promoted as the

‘Democracy Summit’58

– adopted a democratic clause, the terms of which established that

“any unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order in a state of the

Hemisphere constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the participation of that state’s

government in the Summits of the Americas process”.59

During the Quebec Summit the

framework for the drafting of an Inter-American Democratic Charter was also laid out.

Following just a few months of negotiations, the Charter was finally adopted on 11

September 2001, during a special session of the OAS General Assembly held in Lima, Peru.60

The Democratic Charter broadened the conditions under which a member state can be

suspended from the OAS for ‘anti-democratic behaviour’. Its adoption marked the

culmination of an intense period of regional norm-making in the Americas as the regional

doctrine on the defense of democracy evolved into a normative obligation accompanied by a

new declared resolve on its implementation through collective action. The fundamental

55

After the Santiago Commitment and Resolution 1080 set principles into place, certain progress on guidelines

for concrete action was made at the 22nd

OAS General Assembly in Nassau, Bahamas, in May 1992. It was

proposed that the “incorporation of new provisions into the OAS Charter concerning the feasibility of

suspending the governments of member states when a sudden or irregular interruption of the institutional

democratic process takes place.” This proposal was approved in December 1992 with another amendment of the

OAS Charter (the Washington Protocol), which came into effect after the ratification of the member states. The

Washington Protocol authorized the suspension of any government that had seized power by force with a two-

thirds vote of member states. OAS General Assembly Resolution 1080 and the Protocol of Washington seek to

identify the Americas as a democratic community. They also provide mechanisms for possible collective action

by the OAS in the event of “interruptions” of the democratic process in member states. But these instruments

refer only to interruptions of the democratic institutional order, and do not serve to protect against threats to

democracy other than coup d’états or military takeovers. 56

Andrew F. Cooper and Jean-Philippe Thérien, 'The Inter-American Regime of Citizenship: Bridging the

Institutional Gap between Democracy and Human Rights' Third World Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4, 2004. p.736. 57

Although a long-standing declaratory aspiration, the idea of a “community of democracies” in the Americas is

increasingly becoming institutionalised. See Ministerial Conferences of the Community of Democracies

(www.cdemo.cl) and Council for a Community of Democracies (www.ccd21.org), with significant Latin

American leadership albeit being more global in outlook. 58

Andrew F. Cooper, 'The Quebec City "Democracy Summit"' Washington Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2, 2001. 59

Andrew F. Cooper and Thomas Legler, 'The OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm: Questions of Collective

and National Leadership' Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 43, no. 1, 2001. 60

On the negotiation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter see Andrew F. Cooper, 'The Making of the

Inter-American Democratic Charter: A Case of Complex Multilateralism' International Studies Perspectives,

vol. 5, no. 1, 2004.

15

norms of the democracy regime are made clear in Article 1 of the Democratic Charter that

states that “The peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments

have an obligation to promote and defend it.”61

Hence, from mere declaratory commitments, the OAS member states adopted mechanisms to

address alterations of democratic rule in the region. Although building upon well-entrenched

institutional norms, the developments of the 1990s constitute in effect a normative shift in the

regional institutional landscape. In a region where inter-state forms of cooperation have

traditionally been shaped around the notion of national sovereignty, the development towards

a normatively more intrusive institutional framework led to a significant shift in the

principles underpinning regional order. From being based upon the traditional principle of the

co-existence of states with due consideration to national sovereignty, the underlying logic of

state cooperation underwent a shift towards a system based upon solidarist notions62

–

‘wherever democracy is threatened, the community should act’ – with distinctive coercive

elements. These changes came to characterise political developments on the regional-level in

the 1990s and have been interpreted as a “gradual, possibly irreversible, transformation of

sovereignty on the issues of human rights and democracy.”63

These signalled an increasing

willingness on the part of regional states to make the connection between democratic values

and institutions of regional governance.64

Such commitments have coincided with, moreover,

various multilateral efforts undertaken by the Inter-American system in response to events in

Haiti (1991), Peru (1992, 2000), Guatemala (1993), and Paraguay (1996, 1999), and

Venezuela (2002). However, although the OAS has had some successes through its informal

conflict resolution mechanisms65

, recent Summits of the Americas (in Argentina 2005,

Trinidad and Tobago 2009, and Colombia 2012) starkly illustrate shifting regional political

trends, particularly in US-Latin American relations, that challenge accounts that posit a

regional convergence in political values; a trend that we will return to in the next section.66

61

Article 3 of the Democratic Charter defines some of the “essential elements” of “representative democracy” to

include: respect for “human rights and fundamental freedoms, access to and the free exercise of power in

accordance with the rule of law, the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based on secret balloting and

universal suffrage; pluralistic system of political parties and organizations;” and “separation of powers and

independence of the branches of government.” Also, Article 7 maintains that “Democracy is indispensable for

the effective exercise of fundamental freedoms and human rights in their universality, indivisibility and

interdependence, embodied in the respective constitutions of states and in Inter-American and international

human rights instruments.” Moreover, Article 23 states that “Member states are responsible for organizing,

conducting, and ensuring free and fair electoral processes”. See further, Franck, 'The Emerging Right to

Democratic Governance'; Franck, 'Democracy as a Human Right'; Thomas Franck, 'The Democratic

Entitlement' University of Richmond Law Review, vol. 29, no. 1, 1994. 62

For the notion of solidarism see Bull, The Anarchical Society. 63

Kathryn Sikkink, 'Reconceptualizing Sovereignty in the Americas: Historical Precursors and Current

Practices' Houston Journal of International Law, vol. 19, 1996-97. p.705. 64

Cooper and Legler, 'OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm'. 65

Andrew F. Cooper and Thomas Legler, 'A Tale of Two Mesas: The OAS Defense of Democracy in Peru and

Venezuela' Global Governance, vol. 11, no. 4, 2005; Andrew F. Cooper and Thomas F. Legler, Intervention

without Intervening? The OAS Defense and Promotion of Democracy in the Americas (Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2006). 66

For an account of the impact of the changing regional context on efforts to promote democracy and

implications for US-Latin American relations see Par Engstrom and Andrew Hurrell, 'Why the Human Rights

Regime in the Americas Matters' in Mónica Serrano and Vesselin Popovski, eds., Human Rights Regimes in the

Americas (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2010). See further: Andrew Hurrell, 'Hegemony and

Regional Governance in the Americas' in Louise Fawcett and Mónica Serrano, eds., Regionalism and

Governance in the Americas: Continental Drift (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Recent events in

Honduras, where a military coup disposed of the country’s democratically elected President, illustrate the

difficulties facing the OAS in the organization’s efforts to translate norms into practice.

16

3. The transnational character of the IAHRS

The original 1948 Charter of the OAS declared that regional solidarity was based on respect

for democratic governance and proclaimed the importance of individual rights. However, the

norms associated with democracy and human rights have developed in parallel with the

principle of sovereignty in the Americas, often leading to inevitable institutional and political

tensions. Traditionally, these tensions have been resolved in favour of state sovereignty as

evidenced in the mute response by regional institutions to decades of undemocratic rule and

widespread human rights violations as state policy in the region. Yet, through the latter part

of the Cold War and particularly in the 1990s, we could observe a significant expansion of

regional institutions and important changes in the ambition, scope and density of regional

governance in the Americas.67

For many of the new democratic regimes in the region, the

question of how to deal with human rights abuses under prior governments would come to

define the nature and quality of the new democracies. The evolution of the human rights

system therefore became bound up with the question of how to deal with human rights abuses

under previous regimes. In particular the cases dealt with by the system during this period

were predominantly concerned with the practice of forced disappearances under authoritarian

regimes, the status of judicial guarantees in states of emergency, the legal and political

admissibility of amnesty laws, the provision of domestic remedies for human rights victims,

questions of accountability of past human rights abuses, and the right to individual access to

the regional human rights system.68

The challenge to the traditionally pluralist nature of the regional order could be seen in the

trend towards a transnational governance framework in the issue-area of human rights.69

The

IAHRS has developed into a legal regime that provides individuals and groups with

supranational mechanisms with which to challenge the domestic activities of their own

governments. The regional system has developed an increasingly extensive and intrusive set

of human rights norms that legitimate international concern for the general welfare of

individuals and action regarding internal human rights practices of states.70

Such

developments have taken place despite the Inter-American system struggling in the past

under authoritarian rule across the continent; it received a boost with the return of formal

democratic rule; it continues to challenge democratic governments as the legacy of

authoritarianism haunts communities in transition; and it aims to hold governments liable for

their failures to live up to democratic ideals. There are three features of the trend towards the

transnationalization of the regional human rights system from a classic inter-governmental

system that can be noted: (i) the expansion and increased intrusiveness of regional norms

concerned with human rights and political democracy; (ii) the increased pluralism of norm

creation referring to the plurality of actors participating in regional fora; and (iii) the

hardening of enforcement as regional structures are gradually strengthened and increasingly

used for the implementation of regional norms.

67

Louise Fawcett and Mónica Serrano, eds., Regionalism and Governance in the Americas: Continental Drift

(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 68

Due Process of Law Foundation, Victims Unsilenced: The Inter-American Human Rights System and

Transitional Justice in Latin America, (Washington D.C.: Due Process of Law Foundation, 2007). 69

These regional developments should be set within the broader context of the growing transnationalization of

human rights; see, for example, Alison Brysk, Globalization and Human Rights (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2002); Alison Brysk and Gershon Shafir, People out of Place: Globalization, Human Rights

and the Citizenship Gap (London: Routledge, 2004). 70

David Harris, 'Regional Protection of Human Rights: The Inter-American Achievement' in David Harris and

Stephen Livingstone, eds., The Inter-American Human Rights System (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

17

First, in terms of normative expansion, one of the most important regional modifications to

international law that came with the entry into force of the Convention was the establishment

of a right of private petition, thereby legally strengthening the access of individuals to the

human rights system. In order for the Court to hear a case, the proceedings before the

Commission must have been completed; a provision that locates the Commission in the

centre of the Inter-American system.71

Yet, it should be noted that only states parties to the

Convention and the Commission have the right to submit cases to the Court, while

individuals have no standing to do so. So, although the Convention establishes individual

access to the Inter-American system, “the deep-rooted idea that international law regulates

relations between states, [is] reflected in the rule that in general individuals have no locus

standi before international tribunals.”72

In its stead, the mechanism adopted is that any person

or group of persons, or any nongovernmental entity legally recognized in one or more

member states may file petitions with the Commission alleging violations of the Convention

by states parties.73

Although the power of the Court to decide a case referred to it is conditioned on the

acceptance of its jurisdiction by the state parties to the dispute, the competence to judge states

for international human rights violations and to order states to award compensation to

victims, has “virtually transformed the [Court] into a kind of international criminal court.”74

Furthermore, the Court may pass judgement on the compatibility of national legislation with

the Convention. The role of regional human rights law in shaping political developments

brings to our attention the criteria established by the system on which to judge the legitimacy

of states’ behaviour. These define norms by which governments can be held accountable by

their own citizens, as well as by others. In particular, the human rights system has developed

regional legal instruments incorporating increasingly extensive human rights norms that seek

to regulate the relationship between the state and its citizens. Such developments received a

boost with the return to democratic rule and in this sense the direction of the Inter-American

system as a whole became bound up with the maintenance and progress of representative

democracy. Yet, there is significant regional variation with regards to the formal adherence to

the system as reflected in the uneven adoption of regional human rights instruments by OAS

member states; with, most notably, the US, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean not

having ratified the American Convention.

Second, non-state actors as well as transnational and transgovernmental coalitions have

played a considerable role in this normative expansion of regional institutions.75

As the

density and complexity of regional institutions grow, and as regionalization processes open

up new channels of transnational political action, so the process of norm creation becomes

more complex, more contested, and harder even for powerful states to control. Consequently,

71

After the Commission recognizes a petition or communication as admissible; investigates the facts denounced

as violations to the Convention; and drafts the preliminary report, with its proposals and recommendations, to

the accused states; the Convention empowers both the Commission and the state to submit the matter to the

Court within three months. 72

Medina Quiroga, The Battle of Human Rights, p.169. 73

The IACHR is becoming increasingly accessible to petitioners. Amongst other outreach efforts, petitioners

may nowadays submit their complaints to the IACHR through an online procedure available on its website

(www.cidh.org). 74

Cerna, 'Structure and Functioning of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights', p.135. 75

Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C. Smith, 'Transnational Civil Society Actors and Regional

Governance in the Americas: Elite Projects and Collective Action from Below' in Louise Fawcett and Mónica

Serrano, eds., Regionalism and Governance in the Americas: Continental Drift (Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2005).

18

although states remain decisive actors in processes of regional institutionalization, the

growing political pluralism that characterise the regional system has strengthened the

normative salience of regional human rights and democracy norms. On the one hand, the

Inter-American democracy regime has emerged with the active support of, and intensive

lobbying efforts by, a number of influential as well as traditionally less-influential member-

states. Although regional civil society groups did indeed play a considerable role in the

process of drafting the Inter-American Democratic Charter,76

the democracy regime operates

with little civil society participation and remains largely within the intergovernmental mould

that has traditionally characterized regional institutions.

The Inter-American human rights regime, on the other hand, has developed in an independent

fashion with, on its most positive reading, benign neglect on the part of most OAS member-

states vis-à-vis the system. Despite, or perhaps due to, this apparent general disregard, the

human rights system has provided various civil society groups and individuals with

transnational mechanisms of human rights protection that seek to hold governments

accountable for purely internal activities. Thus, processes of regionalization with regards to

human rights and democracy norms have provided domestic actors with transnational

political and legal opportunities to pursue their interests. Although non-state actors remain

excluded from the formal decision-making fora of the Inter-American system, they have

gained significant informal influence through their agenda-setting activities and expertise in

the context of evolving and increasingly complex regional governance structures. From this

perspective, the regional human rights system has provided the platform upon which the

struggle over human rights between and among activists and states has played out.

The third feature to be noted concerns the strengthening of enforcement. Following the

adoption of the OAS Charter and the American Declaration, states have developed human

rights norms in the American Convention on Human Rights and a number of regional human

rights instruments. With the incorporation of the Convention into the Inter-American system,

the regional human rights regime started the transition from a purely promotional regime to

one characterized by strong promotion with emerging enforcement mechanisms. From

promoting human rights standards with significant exceptions, the Convention consolidated

regional norms within a procedural framework that have the potential to yield authoritative

regional decisions.77

The Convention “culminates the first evolutionary stage of the Inter-

American human rights system. Eliciting binding commitments from states parties, it

prescribes an international scheme to protect human rights.”78

In so doing, the Inter-American

system adopted a more judicial approach towards the promotion and protection of human

rights in the region.79

In the context of heightened Cold War tensions accompanied with region-wide systemic

human rights abuses in the beginning of the 1980s this development towards the

strengthening of the human rights regime would have seemed highly improbable. However,

with the (re)-turn to democracy in the region the political space for the promotion of human

76

Cooper, 'Making of the Inter-American Democratic Charter'. 77

Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

1989). pp.215-17 and 24-25. 78

Jane D. Peddicord, 'The American Convention on Human Rights: Potential Defect and Remedies' Texas

International Law Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 1984. p.159. 79

Verónica Gómez, 'The Interaction between the Political Actors of the OAS, the Commission and the Court' in

David J. Harris and Stephen Livingstone, eds., The Inter-American System of Human Rights (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1998).

19

rights opened up. An indication of the evolution of the regional human rights system as it

extended its reach across issue-areas as well as into the domestic affairs of states could be

seen in the increasing number of ratifications of regional human rights instruments and the

increasing acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction. The regional system concerned with the

protection of human rights in the Americas has developed into a normatively intrusive regime

with a far-reaching mandate to regulate domestic political norms and practices of regional

states. The regional human rights system has motivated transnational human rights activism

that connects local understandings of human rights with regional standards to influence

national policy developments. The new openness in regional institutions provide

opportunities for domestic and transnational human rights activists to bring pressure for

change in their domestic political systems. The transnational legal and political processes that

result from such interaction create patterns of behaviour and generate norms of appropriate

conduct that in turn influence domestic legal and political processes. Hence, the ‘impact’ of

regional institutions concerned with the promotion and protection of human rights and the

deepening of democratic rule lies in their ability to shape the nature and direction of the

processes of democratization and the role of human rights in these processes.

III. Contemporary US-Latin American Relations and Challenges to the IAHRS

Despite the increasingly transnational character of the regional human rights system, the

IAHRS continues to be shaped by inter-state relations. Therefore, against a background of

regional institutionalization around the norms of human rights and political democracy over

the course of recent decades, the multiple challenges facing the Inter-American system

remain deeply embedded in contemporary US-Latin American relations. Three clusters of

challenges in particular should be noted: the persistence of human rights violations and the

lack of regional human rights leadership; the multiple challenges associated with the uneven

and contested character of regional processes of democratisation; and the fragility of, and

institutional tensions between and within, the regional mechanisms set up to promote and

protect human rights and democracy.

1. Persistent human rights challenges and lack of state leadership

Despite important advances in recent decades on many measures the Inter-American System

continues to be faced with considerable human rights challenges. The spread of elected

governments in Latin America has marked a significant general improvement in the condition

of human rights on many measures. Yet, cases of indisputable and grave violations continue

to arrive to the Inter-American Commission. Not only is the Commission receiving cases

from the “grey borderland where the state’s authority to promote the general interest collides

with individual rights”,80

but sustained and ‘structural’ human rights violations continue to

occur on a large scale, including cases of police brutality, the murder of street children, rural

violence, and continued discrimination of indigenous peoples. The overall human rights trend

therefore could be characterised as a move away from ‘traditional’ human rights violations

perpetrated by state agents as part of a deliberate state policy. The causes of structural human

rights violations do not lie in the exercise of arbitrary state power but are rather the

consequences of state weaknesses and failures to act. In many cases the role of state

authorities may be difficult to demonstrate, or may indeed be entirely absent, and the capacity

of weak and inefficient state institutions to address such violations may be extremely limited.

80

Farer, 'Rise of the Inter-American Human Rights Regime', p.544.

20

This trend poses major challenges for the regional human rights system that is geared towards

the protection of individuals against actions of the state, built around legal notions of state

responsibility, and that assumes, politically, that pressure can be exerted on states which

possess the levers to improve the situation – in other words that states which are part of the

problem can also be part of the solution.

Indeed, the regional human rights system continues to be deeply embedded in the regional

system of states, and it continues to be heavily reliant on state leadership to induce human

rights change. On the traditional conception of human rights, human rights are to be enjoyed

in national societies as rights under national law. The purpose of international law, from this

perspective, is to influence states to recognise and accept human rights, to reflect these rights

in their national constitutions and laws, to respect and ensure their enjoyment through

national institutions, and to incorporate them into national ways of life.81

This perspective on

the political dynamics of the IAHRS views human rights as intimately tied to state power. For

some, human rights only come to ‘matter’ when powerful states take them up and seek to use

their own power to enforce human rights standards. For others, the human rights regime

might matter but primarily because of what it can do to shift the incentives facing member

states – by generating publicity, by naming and shaming, by creating positive or negative

linkages with other issues.

However, as discussed in the previous section, the US has played, at best, an ambiguous

leadership role in the development of the IAHRS. On the one hand the US has occasionally

channelled its power through the IAHRS to affect human rights change. Moreover, the US

remains the main source of funding of the IAHRS. Yet, US government leadership on human

rights, whenever attempted, continues to be fraught with conflict. The ‘mixed signals’ of the

US policy establishment on human rights both in the region and beyond is long-standing.82

But, changes in the broader security climate over the course of the last decade has had

“clearly negative repercussions for human rights – in terms of the human rights violations

committed by the US itself, most notably in Guantanamo; in terms of the cynicism that the

mismatch between US words and US deeds has engendered across the region; in terms of the

incentives and political space for other groups to emulate Washington’s rhetoric and

behaviour.”83

Moreover, the security-first environment of the Bush era appears increasingly

institutionalised. Many were the commentators who interpreted the soaring rhetoric of

presidential candidate Barack Obama of restoring the moral authority of the US as an

unambiguous and renewed commitment to human rights standards. However, even beyond the

failed promise to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the Obama administration

has stayed the course in the ‘war on terrorism’ with, for example, its increasing use of extra-

judicial killings by unmanned drones. In Latin America, the Obama administration has

continued to support the increasing militarization of the response to drug-trade related violence

in Mexico with its predictable human rights implications. In the absence of US moral leadership

in the region human rights advocates and IAHRS officials have increasingly looked to

influential Latin American states for leadership. However, as we will see below, beyond some

81

Louis Henkin, ‘International Human Rights and Rights in the United States’, in Theodor Meron (ed.), Human

Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p.25. 82

Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America, (Cornell University Press,

2004). 83

Par Engstrom and Andrew Hurrell, “Why the Human Rights Regime in the Americas Matters,” in Human

Rights Regimes in the Americas, ed. Mónica Serrano and Vesselin Popovski (Tokyo: United Nations University

Press, 2010).

21

notable exceptions, the IAHRS is increasingly contested by influential states in Latin

America, frequently on the grounds that the IAHRS is nothing but a front for US interests.

2. Challenges of democratisation

Democracy as a political regime might remain ‘the only game in town’ in the Americas. Yet,

contemporary challenges to democracy in Latin America have less to do with the threat of

military coups and the failure to hold clean elections than with the slow erosion of democratic

systems. While the act of taking power by means of a coup d’état is rather unambiguous, there

are multiple ways in which power obtained through democratic means may be exercised

undemocratically.84

Indeed, the really-existing democracies of the region remain weakly

institutionalised and citizenship rights are as a result unstable. The divergences between the

formal and procedural characteristics of the political arrangements and the subjective

perceptions of experiences with democracy of those living under its regime vary across as

well as within countries.85

Accordingly, the main challenge to democratic rule in the region is

not the return to authoritarianism, but rather lies at the ‘fault lines’ of democratically elected

regimes.86

Hence, departing from the minimalist and procedural conception of democracy as

implied by the consolidation paradigm87

, the expectations of what democracy should deliver,

and how, expand. As the demands on democracy shift, however, reality does not necessarily

follow. In particular, the gap between the claims and predictions of the consolidation

paradigm and the subjective experiences of democracy in the region is wide and potentially

growing. There are, in other words, significant differences in terms of political outcomes

from democratization across the region that question an unequivocal narrative of regional

convergence around values of liberal democracy.

Such divergences have far-reaching consequences for the IAHRS. In particular, normative

understandings of the character of democratic rule have diverged significantly over the course

of the last decade in particular. While the US has been openly critical of left-leaning

governments in the region and what it perceives to be abuses of ‘populist’ rulers, “there has

been widespread discontent across the region with the results of democracy and liberal economic

reform; calls for much greater attention to the social agenda; and the loud proclamation of more

‘authentic’, ‘redistributive’ and ‘participatory’ modes of democracy (most notably in Venezuela

and Bolivia).”88

Recent conflicts over the Inter-American Commission’s criticisms of the

erosion of freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary in Ecuador, and in

particular Venezuela, indicate that the IAHRS has been caught up in the diplomatic maelstrom

of accusations and counter-accusations. As Andrew Hurrell and I have argued elsewhere,

“[w]hatever the exact truth of these respective claims (with both sides presenting far too

simplistic a picture of political change in the region), the point here is simply to note the

difficulty for the IAHRS in its efforts to promote and protect human rights and democracy when

84

For claims regarding ‘illiberal’ democracies, see Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal

Democracy at Home and Abroad 1st (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003). For a discussion of liberal

democracy in Latin America, see Laurence Whitehead, 'The Alternatives to 'Liberal Democracy': A Latin

American Perspective' in David Held, ed., Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West (Cambridge:

Polity Press, 1993). 85

O'Donnell, 'On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems'. 86

Felipe Agüero and Jeffrey Stark, Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America (Coral Gables,

FL: North-South Center Press/University of Miami, 1998). 87

Linz and Stepan, 'Toward Consolidated Democracies'. 88



Press, 2010), p.50.

22

there is so little consensus on the meaning of democracy and the direction in which democratic

change should proceed.”89

3. Tensions within and between regional institutions

The many challenges to human rights and democracy in the region are indeed overlapping.

However, there is little mutual reinforcement between the Inter-American human rights

system and other regional mechanisms, including the Inter-American Democratic Charter.90

Although a people’s right to democracy is affirmed in the Democratic Charter, and the

protection of human rights is deemed essential, above and beyond the holding of periodic

elections, the mechanisms for evaluation and implementation contained in the Charter are

unclear.91

Furthermore, on the terms of the Charter, the OAS will ultimately exercise its own

discretion when choosing to intervene (or not) in the defence of democratic principles.92

This

puts the state concerned itself in the position to choose whether to solicit an inquiry, leaving

civil society groups seeking to trigger an investigation into alleged violations of the

Democratic Charter with no recourse provided for in the Charter.93

Hence, regional states have constructed a regional regime seeking to protect and promote

democracy that is directly under the control of states. Compared to the IAHRS, it is

politically and legally less constraining, and less susceptible to progressive development both

from within the system and by civil society groups. Given these strong state-based biases

inherent in the democracy regime, political considerations inevitably influence the stated

objective of defending democracy. Moreover, there is no explicit reference to the Inter-

American human rights system in the Democratic Charter. While the human rights system

has been increasingly willing in explicitly making the connection between the protection of

human rights and democratic form of government, the institutional mechanisms developed to

meet these overlapping challenges remain distinct. The IACHR in particular could play an

important role in initiating debate around situations that appear to threaten democratic

governance, helping to raise ‘early warnings’ about breakdowns in democracy, studying

situations that merit the adoption of measures under the Democratic Charter, and evaluating

the application of such measures.

This would require, however, far more robust institutional structures of hemispheric

cooperation than what currently exist. It would also require a degree of convergence in US-

Latin American relations around shared preferences and normative understandings of

89



Press, 2010), p.50. 90

As noted by Cooper and Thérien, the “promotion of democracy would help to reinforce human rights and,

conversely, the promotion of human rights would support the development of a democratic order.” Yet to this

day, in operation “human rights and democracy often appear disconnected on the Inter-American agenda.”

Cooper and Thérien, 'Inter-American Regime of Citizenship', p.732. 91

In particular, the Charter is vague in defining conditions that would constitute a violation of the charter – the

“unconstitutional alteration or interruption” of the democratic order noted in Article 19. 92

The mechanism described in Article 17 of the Democratic Charter – “When the government of a member state

considers that its democratic political institutional process or its legitimate exercise of power is at risk…” –

suggests that member states must invite OAS intervention, at least in the first instance. 93

In case of a more dramatic ‘interruption’ of the constitutional order, such as a coup d’état, any member state

can request that a process of assessment be initiated, the consequences of which could include suspension from

the OAS of the violating member-state. However, the mechanism for collective action is weak because it is still

unclear whether or not the acquiescence of the state in question is a precondition for collective action. These

tensions were clearly illustrated following the military coup in Honduras in June/July 2009.

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democracy and human rights. If the 1990s was characterised by optimism regarding human

rights and democracy in the Americas that reflected a widespread perception of shared liberal

preferences and values, the 2000s was defined by a return of power concerns, ideological

conflicts, and disruptive disputes over sovereignty claims and US hegemony. If the end of the

Bush presidency raised hopes in some quarters of a change of course in US policy towards

the region, the policy continuities of the Obama administration are indeed significant (as seen

in the continuing militarisation of Mexico through the Merida Initiative, or in the eventual US

embrace of the post-coup government in Honduras). In the process, the ambitious

institutional initiatives of the 1990s, including the Summits of the Americas and the proposed

Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), have either become highly politicised or

been abandoned. The OAS has also become increasingly marginalised from addressing the

many challenges of human rights, insecurity, inequality, democratic rule, and economic

development in the region. And, while the decline in the salience of Latin America to US

foreign policy has continued under Obama, the centre of gravity of the regional institutional

landscape has shifted away from Washington towards competing regional arrangements, such

as UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), that explicitly seek to exclude the US.

Many Latin American countries also increasingly look beyond the region for diplomatic and

economic cooperation (China, India, Turkey, and Iran).

The IAHRS is clearly at a delicate conjuncture as a result of these divergent tracks of regional

institutionalisation. The Inter-American Commission in particular is facing fierce criticisms

from several regionally influential countries, including Venezuela, whose government, under

former president Hugo Chávez, took the step to renounce the jurisdiction of the Inter-

American Court. In the case of Brazil, the response by the Dilma Rousseff government was

very swift to the high profile adoption of an interim measure by the IACHR in April 2011,

requesting Brazil to halt the construction of the Belo Monte dam. President Dilma decided to

suspend Brazil’s annual contribution to the IACHR, to temporarily recall its ambassador to

the OAS, and to withdraw the former Human Rights minister, Paulo Vannuchi’s candidacy to

become member of the Inter-American Commission. Although there has been a gradual

return to the status quo by the Brazilian government, as reflected in the recent election of

Vannuchi to the Commission, the very public challenge to the IACHR’s authority by a

country that is widely seen both inside and outside the IAHRS as pivotal for the future of

regional governance has been damaging.

Indeed, the rise of sub-regional organisations in Latin America challenging the OAS has

gained a certain momentum. Prior to the passing of Hugo Chávez there were determined

considerations of the creation of human rights bodies as part of either UNASUR or CELAC

(Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). Moreover, with the consolidation of

Mercosur’s human rights mandate, the IAHRS may appear less and less the ‘only game in

town’ for the many groups and individuals seeking international redress for human rights

abuses in Latin America. Hence, as seen in the recent IAHRS reform process, some Latin

American countries are strident in their efforts to change the institutional rules of the regional

game. Their criticisms of the OAS, and often by association the IAHRS, are couched in terms

of condemnations of the perceived US dominance of these institutions. True, the US remains

the major funder of the IAHRS, and of course, funding never comes with at least some strings

attached. Yet, equally true is the fact that the IAHRS figures very far down the US foreign

policy agenda, including in its relations with Latin America. Indeed, the striking feature is the

combination of indifference with which certain OAS governments, in particular the US, treat

the IAHRS, as evidenced in uneven ratification rates (the US, Canada, English-speaking

Caribbean not having ratified the American Convention and not having accepted the

24

jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court), lack of adequate financial support, and patchy

compliance rates.

Conclusion

The Inter-American Human Rights System has over time carved out a central role on the

regional institutional landscape in the Americas. Clearly, the character of US-Latin American

relations has shaped the development of the IAHRS, and, as this chapter has sought to

illustrate, the IAHRS has, in turn, had a non-negligible impact on hemispheric politics.

Indeed, the institutional development of the IAHRS needs to be understood in terms of the

broader historical and geopolitical context of US-Latin America relations, which continues to

shape the functioning of the system, as amply demonstrated in the context of the IAHRS

reform process in recent years. Yet, an exclusive focus on the inter-state politics of the Inter-

American System would risk neglecting the ways in which the IAHRS matters for citizens

and groups across the region. The IAHRS has significantly departed from its institutional

origins as a ‘classical’ intergovernmental regime. An independent regional human rights

court and an autonomous commission are regularly judging whether regional states are in

compliance with their international human rights obligations. The access of individuals and

regional human rights organizations to the human rights regime has strengthened over time.

Although clear regional differences between countries persist, the normative and institutional

evolution of the IAHRS has led to an increased interaction between domestic political

processes, national legal orders and regional human rights institutions. In the process the

IAHRS has become embedded in domestic political and legal systems, and is increasingly

used for the implementation of regional human rights norms. These processes of

regionalization have opened up space for transnational political agency, providing

opportunities for domestic and transnational human rights actors to bring pressure for change

in their domestic political and legal systems.

Without doubt, it is important to recognise the very real limitations of the IAHRS and to be

sober about the many challenges the system is facing. And yet, there continue to be reasons to

be cautiously optimistic about the future of the IAHRS. The system is doing valuable work

below the radar of regional inter-state diplomacy. Moreover, although the reform process was

strongly dominated by governments trying to tie down the IACHR, in particular, and reduce

its autonomy, the counter-mobilisation of a regional network of human rights groups in

support of the IAHRS proved relatively effective. Most crucially however, as reflected in

steadily increasing petitions to the IACHR, the demand from victims and their relatives, and

human rights organisations across the region, remains robust and growing.

The Inter-American Human Rights System and U.S.-Latin America Relations

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