Inter American Convention On Human Rights (1)

The American Convention on Human Rights was adopted in 1969 and is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It covers various civil and political rights, including the right to life, fair trial, privacy, freedom of thought and expression, and the right to participate in government. It also includes economic and social rights, such as the right to education and cultural standards. The convention establishes the structure and procedures for protecting these rights. It emphasizes the importance of protecting families and individuals' rights to nationality, property, and movement. The convention also establishes the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and outlines the process for appointing judges. Overall, the convention echoes the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Welcome to yet another episode of the Diary of a Lawyer, and today we are going to be talking about the American Convention on Human Rights. The American Convention on Human Rights was adopted at the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica on the 22nd November 1969. I'll just quickly go through a preamble where the signatories to the convention reaffirmed, I'm just paraphrasing, they reaffirmed the intention to consolidate in that specific hemisphere the framework of domestic institutions, personal liberty, social justice, and based on respect for the essential rights of man. They recognized that the rights are not derived from one being a national of a certain state, but are based on the attributes of the human personality and therefore justify international protection in the form of convention rights and duties of a man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Again, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems to be a recurring theme or a foundation of the other conventions that we've looked at, such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human Rights, and they went on to reiterate that in accordance with the UDHR, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that the ideal of free men enjoy freedom from here and want, and can only be achieved on these conditions that are created whereby everyone may enjoy and participate in his economic, social, and cultural rights as well as his civil and political rights, and considered that the third special Inter-American Conference in Buenos Aires 1967 approved the incorporation of the Charter and resolved that an Inter-American Convention on Human Rights should determine the structure, competence, and procedure of the organs responsible for these human rights. So that's basically a bit of a background, but it seems to echo other Charters. And now the rights alone, but we'll just quickly go through them, and we're not going to go into the intrinsic case law, but just to go through them so that we have a general understanding of what it involves. So it starts with the civil and political rights, and mentions that Article 3, everyone has a right to judicial, sorry, juridical personality, and they go on to Article 4, where, you know, they mention the right to life, which is self-evident. Article 5, the right to human treatment. Article 6, freedom from slavery. Article 7, the right to personal liberty. Article 8, the right to a fair trial in any proceedings. Article 9, freedom from post-facto laws. Now, this is important because it's made explicitly clear in this Charter, and it simply says that no one shall be convicted of any act or commission or omission that did not constitute a criminal offence under the applicable law at the time it was committed. In other words, you can't go back and create offences that were not offences at the time the event did or did not happen. And it doesn't say that a heavier penalty shall not be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed, and concludes that if subsequent to the commission or defence, the law provides for the imposition of the life punishment, the person should be considered in that regard. I mean, there's a slight interrelation with the American Constitution in relation to similar, not the same, double jeopardy, but it makes reference to effective punishment that is fair, that people should not be punished twice, and that excessive punishment is inherently unconstitutional in the case of the American Constitution. But also here, it's under Article 9, it makes reference to, but not exactly similar, which states that freedom from ex post facto laws. Article 10 is the right to compensation in accordance with the law in the event that the person has been sentenced by a final judgment for a miscarriage of justice. Article 11, the right to privacy, someone to have his own or respected and his dignity recognised. Article 12, freedom of conscience and religion, self-evident. Article 13, freedom of thought and expression, again, self-evident. There's another one, which is slightly more explicit than perhaps in other conventions, which is the right of reply, where it's gotten to say that anyone injured by inaccurate offensive statements or ideas disseminated to the public in general by a legally regulated medium of communication has a right to reply or to make a correction using the same communications alphabets under such conditions as the law may establish. We often see this in the case of media correction, but also if you go into civil law, that may go into various other areas which we shall not go into here. The right of assembly, which is reference to peaceful assembly without arms is recognised and no restriction may be placed on such exercise other than those imposing conformity with the law unnecessary in democratic society. Article 16, the freedom of association, self-evident. The right of families, Article 17 and again, there seems to be a recurring theme here, I think the products of the time, which is the family as a national fundamental unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state. There's another right which is, I think, not again made so explicit in others, which is the right to a name, the mentioned right to have a child as a minor in terms of protection and conditions on the part of each family and the state, the right to nationality and no one shall be a betrayer of the private nationality or the right to change it, the right to property, which is on Article 21 and it cannot be taken as deprived of a just compensation. Article 22, which is freedom of movement and residence against self-evident. Article 23, right to participate in government. Article 22, right to equal protection of the laws. Article 25, right to judicial protection. And the next chapter, I think chapter 3, covers economic and social rights of individuals and there are various details that go into those, but I think the headline here is that the parties undertake to make sure, and I respect measures both internally and through their cooperation, either through technical or economic measure, that these legislation or other means, appropriate means, where there's a full realisation of the rights implicit in the economic, social, educational, scientific and cultural standards set forth in the Charter. Those are sort of the general rights that we can go into the time we have, but that essentially the Commission recognises that there are rights that need to be protected and it sets out in the Charter and the other details go down to set out how exactly in terms of the constitution of the bodies and technical nature and how they're going to be applied, the process and the various organs that will be responsible for executing those rights. But the concluding article deals with the Secretary General, where in writing, shall request each party to present within 90 days its candidates for membership on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and prepare a list of in alphabetical order the candidates presented and send it to the third parties at least 30 days prior to the next session of the General Assembly. There again, a procedural issue. And finally, Article 22, which deals with judges and determines how judges or lists of candidates can be nominated, appointed, etc. And so that is it in a nutshell on the Inter-American Charter of Human Rights, but the common theme seems to be, it seems to echo that founding document. I would characterise the founding document which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and they sort of, then they put it into a local nature, depending on the local circumstances, whether that's the European Convention of Human Rights or the African Charter of Human Rights or indeed, as we see, the South American, the Inter-American Charter of Human Rights. But they all seem to base that on the founding principle, which is the African, sorry, on the founding document, which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So, there we shall leave it on this edition of the Diaries of Lawyers and today we've covered the Inter-American Charter of Human Rights. And I'll speak to you soon. Thank you and goodbye. Thank you.