Post-Panel
Inter-American System: A Perspective from Latin America
June 15, 2011
American University Washington College of Law
Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Moderator: Elizabeth Abi Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States (DC)
Katya Salazar: Executive Director, Due Process of Law Foundation (DC)
Roderigo Uprimny: Director Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justia y Sociedad/Center for Law, Society, and Justice (Colombia)
David Lovaton Palacios: Former Director, Legal Defense Institute (Peru) *via Skype
Gaston Chillier: Director, Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales/Center for Legal and Social Studies (Argentina)
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Our Tweets, fresh from @ABAInternatl.
- Moderator Elizabeth Abi Mershed, Deputy Exec. Secretary at Organization of American States introducing.
- David Lovaton Palacios, advisor at Legal Defense Institute (Peru), Gaston Chillier, Legales y Sociales (Argentina) joining via Skype.
- Internal armed conflict in Peru has taken 70,000 lives this year, according to Palacios. #humanrights
- “If a system with institutional weaknesses continues, then how can we activate inter-American efforts?” #humanrights
- “The HR movement needs greater transparency, communication. Future elections certainly open opportunities for civility.” #humanrights
- Palacios concludes his initial statements: “The inter-American system needs reform from its inception from 50 years ago.” #humanrights
- There have been patterns of HR violations in the Americas. Right to life, human treatment, integrity, execution, torture. #humanrights
- New challenges for HR, Salazar explains, include environmental protection, protection of indigenous persons in #LatinAmerica. #humanrights
- Salazar: “The rights of individual, collective property are of new importance. But concerns of indigenous are not novel, just invisible.”
- Mafias, collective crime rings, drug traffickers are new players in the#humanrights movement. Courts, commissions are addressing all.
- Roderigo Uprimny, Director Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justia y Sociedad (Colombia) speaking.
- “There are serious problems in selectivity of the HR system,” Uprimny says. Attention is filtered by courts, access to justice, resources.
- What can we do to create quality constitutional courts? Ask if we can facilitate in the Americas. More cases don’t create better systems.
- Uprimny addressing basis of certiorari, structural judgment. Access through formal/informal mechanisms, such as Spanish, German courts.
- “Selectiveness is inevitable.” Proposes to re-think system of high courts, to make certiorari with general, wide impact domestically.
- The floor has now been opened for questions.
- Palacios addresses question on new modalities - some Latin American states have been promoting regional, sub-regional (local) mechanisms.
- Salazar: Not everyone is happy with the commission, even neighbor states. Considering # cases received, new focus needs to be on efficiency.
- Uprimny receives nods across the panel - problematic case selection is one that is not transparent, without criteria. #humanrights
- Hershed also adds that international pressure does not automatically translate to better law. See Guantanamo, et cetera.
- Hershed concludes panel, thanks today’s forum participants. Follow up report coming up at www.ABAInternatl.tumblr.com.
For more information: www.wcl.american.edu/hracademy
