FAQs
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What is the Inter-American Human Rights System? |
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The Inter-American human rights system provides recourse to people in the Americas who have suffered violations of their rights by the state. It is comprised of several institutions and its two pillars are the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C., and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in San José, Costa Rica. These institutions apply regional law on human rights. The system emerged with the adoption of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man in April 1948 – the first international human rights instrument of a general nature, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by more than six months. The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was created in 1959. It held its first meeting in 1960, and it conducted its first on-site visit to inspect the human rights situation in an OAS member state (the Dominican Republic) in 1961. A major step in the development of the system was taken in 1965, when the Commission was expressly authorized to examine specific cases of human rights violations. Since that date the IACHR has received thousands of petitions and has processed in excess of 12,000 individual cases. In 1969, the guiding principles behind the American Declaration were taken, reshaped, and restated in the American Convention on Human Rights. The Convention defines the human rights that the states parties are required to respect and guarantee, and it also ordered the establishment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It is currently binding on 24 of the OAS's 35 member states. To learn more about the Inter-American Human Rights system go to the Institutions of the Inter-American Human Rights System page. |
