The Administrative Tribunal of the Organization of American States is an autonomous organ competent to hear those cases in which members of the staff of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States ("GS/OAS") allege nonobservance of the conditions established in their respective appointments or contracts or violation of the General Standards for the operation of the General Secretariat or other applicable provisions, including those concerning the Retirement and Pension Plan of the General Secretariat.

The competence of the Administrative Tribunal has been extended to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture by the Special Agreement signed February 18, 1976.

For the adjudication of any disputes, the internal legislation of the Organization shall take precedence over general principles of labor law and the laws of any member State.

The Administrative Tribunal is composed by six members elected by the General Assembly to serve for terms of six years. Each member must be a national of an OAS member State, but no two members may be nationals of the same member State. The composition of the Administrative Tribunal reflects the two major legal traditions of the Hemisphere: the common-la tradition and the civil-law tradition.