Signposts from the Santiago Summit.

• Position: Evaluating success of First Summit of the Americas' plans at Summit of the Americas, Santiago, Chile

In April thirty-four democratically elected heads of state met in Santiago, Chile, to assess how successful, individually and collectively, their countries had been in achieving the goals set forth in the plan of action adopted at the First Summit of the Americas, held in Miami in December 1994. The nations also adopted a more extensive plan to promote overall development, ensure access to and improve the quality of education, promote and strengthen democracy and the respect for human rights, deepen economic integration and free trade, and eradicate poverty and discrimination.

For the OAS, which has been designated the institutional memory of this high-level process to transform the nations of the Americas and the nature of inter-American relations, the meeting was of crucial importance. Most of the initiatives mandated by the Summit involved the OAS as the implementing or coordinating organization and, as a result, set a new course for this body in the twenty-first century. While the mandates were many and cover a wide range of civic and political initiatives, several are of particular significance.

Through its Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the OAS was directed to establish "a singular and objective procedure" for evaluating national efforts against drug-trafficking. This would be a multilateral approach that would function parallel to the controversial yearly "certification" by which the U.S. government judges the success of the hemisphere's nations in suppressing the illicit manufacture and trade in drugs. Moving quickly, just two weeks after the Summit, representatives of the OAS member states met in Washington to design a system to monitor the progress of the nations' individual and collective efforts to halt narcotics traffic and related criminal activities.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY The thirty-four leaders concurred that for representative democracy to flourish it was necessary to have real justice and a free media. In a democratic society it is necessary to expose corruption and wrongdoing, confront criminals, and question governments themselves. Accordingly, the hemisphere's leaders agreed to establish a center of justice studies for the Americas, which would be a training institute for judges and prosecutors. More importantly, they pledged their support for the fundamental right to freedom of expression and the work of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, recently created by the Inter-American...