Earlier, Semana (and then Tuerto) raised the alarm that Ecuador’s Correa and Venezuela’s Chávez contributed to recommendations to be brought before the OAS to reform its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a way that might neuter that body’s freedom of expression rapporteur. I am happy to say that the danger appears to have passed.
The ambassadors of the states parties to the OAS held a session on Jan. 25 in which they broadly and vociferously supported the roll of the IACHR in matters of protection of freedom of expression specifically and human rights in general. Excerpts from their comments can be read on the Commission’s Facebook page, and they are very encouraging.
Even though the special rapporteur on freedom of expression isn’t mentioned at all in the reform report and rapporteurs in general only receive three brief mentions, the media coverage of the possible threat to the freedom of expression rapporteur seemed to focus the comments of the ambassadors on that issue.
Nearly all the ambassadors stated that they expected any reform of the IACHR to make it more independent and more proactive, and some countries – like Costa Rica – focused their comments almost exclusively on freedom of expression. This comment from the ambassador from Argentina was exemplary of the tone of the meeting:
We would also like to highlight that the recommendation that all the rapporteurships must have the same funding should be interpreted with the intention of leveling them upwards, such that all issues in the region receive similar treatment. In this sense, each rapporteurship should have its own annual report.
Recall that currently, the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression is well funded by other non-IACHR sources and is the only rapporteurship that produces its own annual report. Should the IACHR begin to receive funding more appropriate to its mission, the rapporteurships on women, the rights of children, immigrants and Afro-descendants (just to name a few) could begin to do some really interesting work in the region.
In the end, the ambassadors approved the reform report, passing it on to the IACHR as a recommendation. The state representatives could take further action to make the report´s recommendations mandatory for the IACHR, but from the way yesterday’s meeting went, that would probably be a good thing.