| Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | IACHR |
| Formation | 1959 |
| Purpose/focus | Human Rights monitoring in the Americas |
| Location | Washington, D.C., United States, |
| Region served | Americas (ACHR signatories, OAS members) |
| President | Felipe Gonzalez |
| Parent organization | Organization of American States |
| Website | IACHR |
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages – Spanish, French, and Portuguese – CIDH, Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos, Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme, Comissão Interamericana de Direitos Humanos) is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Along with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, it is one of the bodies that comprise the inter-American system for the promotion and protection of human rights.
The IACHR is a permanent body, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., United States, and it meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere.
Its human rights duties stem from three documents:
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The inter-American system for the protection of human rights 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 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.
The main task of the IACHR is to promote the observance and defense of human rights in the Americas.
In pursuit of this mandate it:
The IACHR has created several Rapporteurships and one Special Rapporteurship to monitor OAS states' compliance with inter-American human rights treaties in the following areas:
The IACHR also has a Unit on Defenders on Human Rights (website in Spanish: http://www.cidh.org/defenders/defensores.htm) and a Press and Outreach Office (http://www.cidh.org/prensa.eng.htm)
The Commission processes petitions lodged with it pursuant to its Rules of Procedure.
Petitions may be filed by states, NGOs or individuals. Unlike most court filings, petitions are confidential documents and are not made public. Petitions must meet three requirements; domestic remedies must have already been tried and failed (exhaustion), petitions must be filed with in six months of the last action taken in a domestic system (timeliness), petitions can not be before another court (duplication of procedure).
Once a petition has been filed, it follows the following procedure:
The IACHR's ranking officers are its seven commissioners. The commissioners are elected by the OAS General Assembly, for four-year terms, with the possibility of reelection on one occasion, for a maximum period in office of eight years. They serve in a personal capacity and are not considered to represent their countries of origin but rather "all the member countries of the Organization" (Art. 35 of the Convention). The Convention (Art. 34) says that they must "be persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights". No two nationals of the same member state may be commissioners simultaneously (Art. 37), and commissioners are required to refrain from participating in the discussion of cases involving their home countries.
| Name | State | Position | Elected | Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luz Patricia Mejía Guerrero | Venezuela | Commissioner | 2007 | 2008–2011 |
| Felipe González Morales | Chile | Chair | 2007 | 2008–2011 |
| Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro | Brazil | First Vice Chair | 2003 2007 |
2004–2007 2008–2011 |
| María Silvia Guillén | El Salvador | Commissioner | 2010 | 2010–2011 |
| Rodrigo Escobar Gil | Colombia | Commissioner | 2010 | 2010–2013 |
| Dinah Shelton | USA | Second Vice Chair | 2010 | 2010–2013 |
| Jesús Orozco Henríquez | Mexico | Commissioner | 2010 | 2010–2013 |
| Source: IACHR elects officers (16 March 2009). See also: IACHR distributes rapporteurships (4 March 2008). | ||||
| Year | State | Commissioners | President (post-2001) Chairman (pre-2001) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960–1963 | Venezuela | Rómulo Gallegos | |
| 1960–1964 | El Salvador | Reynaldo Galindo Pohl | |
| 1960–1968 | Ecuador | Gonzalo Escudero | |
| 1960–1972 | Chile | Ángela Acuña de Chacón | |
| 1960–1972 | USA | Durwood V. Sandifer | |
| 1960–1972 | Chile | Manuel Bianchi Gundián | |
| 1960–1979 | Mexico | Gabino Fraga | |
| 1964–1968 | Uruguay | Daniel Hugo Martins | |
| 1964–1983 | Brazil | Carlos A. Dunshee de Abranches | |
| 1968–1972 | Peru | Mario Alzamora Valdez | |
| 1968–1972 | Uruguay | Justino Jiménez de Arechega | |
| 1972–1976 | Argentina | Genaro R. Carrió | |
| 1972–1976 | USA | Robert F. Woodward | |
| 1972–1985 | Venezuela | Andrés Aguilar | |
| 1976–1979 | Guatemala | Carlos García Bauer | |
| 1976–1979 | Costa Rica | Fernando Volio Jiménez | |
| 1976–1983 | USA | Tom J. Farer | |
| 1976–1978 | Colombia | José Joaquín Gori | |
| 1978–1987 | Colombia | Marco Gerardo Monroy Cabra | |
| 1980–1987 | El Salvador | Franciso Bertrand Galindo | |
| 1980–1985 | Mexico | César Sepúlveda | |
| 1980–1985 | Costa Rica | Luis Demetrio Tinoco Castro | |
| 1984–1988 | USA | R. Bruce McColm | |
| 1984–1987 | Bolivia | Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas | |
| 1984–1991 | Brazil | Gilda Maciel Correa Russomano | |
| 1986–1989 | Argentina | Elsa Kelly | |
| 1986–1993 | Venezuela | Marco Tulio Bruni-Celli | |
| 1986–1993 | Barbados | Oliver H. Jackman | |
| 1988–1991 | USA | John Reese Stevenson | |
| 1988–1995 | Honduras | Leo Valladares Lanza | |
| 1988–1995 | Jamaica | Patrick Lipton Robinson | |
| 1990–1997 | Argentina | Óscar Luján Fappiano | |
| 1992–1995 | USA | Michael Reisman | |
| 1994–1997 | Trinidad and Tobago | John S. Donaldson | 1997 |
| 1998–1999 | Barbados | Henry Forde | |
| 1992–1999 | Colombia | Álvaro Tirado Mejía | 1995 |
| 1996–1999 | Venezuela | Carlos Ayala Corao | 1998 |
| 1996–1999 | Haiti | Jean-Joseph Exumé | |
| 1994–2001 | USA | Claudio Grossman | 1996 2001 |
| 1998–2001 | Brazil | Hélio Bicudo | 2000 |
| 1999–2001 | Barbados | Peter Laurie | |
| 2002–2002 | Peru | Diego García Sayán | |
| 1996–2003 | USA | Robert K. Goldman | 1999 |
| 2000–2003 | Guatemala | Marta Altolaguirre Larraondo | 2003 |
| 2000–2003 | Argentina | Juan E. Méndez | 2002 |
| 2000–2003 | Ecuador | Julio Prado Vallejo | |
| 2002–2005 | Peru | Susana Villarán | |
| 2001–2005 | Chile | José Zalaquett | 2004 |
| 2004–2007 | Paraguay | Evelio Fernández Arévalos | 2006 |
| 2004–2007 | Venezuela | Freddy Gutiérrez | |
| 2002–2009 | Antigua and Barbuda | Sir Clare Kamau Roberts | |
| 2004–2009 | El Salvador | Florentín Meléndez | |
| 2006–2009 | Argentina | Víctor Abramovich | |
| 2006–2009 | USA | Paolo Carozza | 2008 |