Commemorating human rights: the Organization of American States continues its commitment to the recognition of the dignity of mankind through the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

AuthorCanton, Santiago

In 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will celebrate its 50th anniversary. * The decision to create the Commission was made during the Fifth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in Santiago, Chile, in 1959. In the Final Act adopted at the meeting, the OAS member states said that "liberty, justice, and peace are based on recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of the individual." On August 18, 1959, the Fifth Meeting of Consultation resolved to "create an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, composed of seven members elected, as individuals, by the Council of the Organization of American States from panels of three names presented by the governments. The Commission, which shall be organized by the Council of the Organization and have the specific functions that the Council assigns to it, shall be charged with furthering respect for such rights." The mission of the IACHR was to oversee the implementation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, adopted by the OAS in 1948. At the 1959 Meeting of Consultation in Chile, the countries also observed that "the climate in this hemisphere is favorable to the conclusion of a convention."

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The decision to create an Inter-American Commission and to begin drafting an American Convention on Human Rights made the 1959 meeting a milestone in efforts to protect and guarantee human rights in the Americas.

But this important step was part of a process that had begun years earlier, as the entire world grappled with how to ensure that a tragedy like the Second World War would not be repeated.

The search for adequate responses to World War II led to the creation in 1945 of the United Nations, whose founding charter resolves "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained."

That historic moment of searching was the context in which the first systems were created to protect human rights in the international arena, based on the recognition of the dignity of all human beings. This process, in...

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