7
remained no place for the vacatio legis24. The 1994 Declaración of San José gave a special
emphasis not only on the whole problem of internal displacement, but also, more widely, on
the challenges presented by the new situations of human uprootedness in Latin America and
the Caribbean, including the forced migratory movements originated by causes differents from
those foreseen in the Declaration of Cartagena.
20.
The 1994 Declaration recognized that the violation of human rights is one of the causes
of forced displacements and that therefore the protection of those rights and the strengthening
of the democratic system constitute the best measure for the search of durable solutions, as
well as for the prevention of conflicts, the exoduses of refugees and the grave humanitarian
crises25. Recently, at the end of consultations, with a wide public participation, undertaken at
the initiative of the UNHCR, the 2004 Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen the
International Protection of Refugees in Latin America was adopted26, on the occasion of the
twentieth anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration (supra). For the first time in the present
process, a document of the kind was accompanied by a Plan of Action. This can be explained
by the aggravation of the humanitarian crisis in the region, particularly in the Andean
subregion.
21.
As the rapporteur of the Committee of Legal Experts of the UNHCR observed in his
presentation of the final report to the Mexico Colloquy, at its first plenary session, on 15
November 2004, although the moments of the 1984 Cartagena Declaration and the 1994 San
José Declaration are distinct, their achievements "cumulate, and constitute today a juridical
patrimony" of all the peoples of the region, disclosing the new trends of the development of
the international safeguard of the rights of the human person in the light of the needs of
protection, and projecting themselves into the future27. Thus,
"the Declaration of Cartagena faced the great human drama of the
armed conflicts in Central America, but furthermore foresaw the aggravation of
the problem of internally displaced persons. The Declaration of San José, in
turn, dwelt deeper upon the issue of protection of, besides refugees, also of
internally displaced persons, but moreover foresaw the aggravation of the
problem of forced migratory fluxes.
Ever since anachronical compartmentalizations were
overcome,
proper of a way of thinking of a past which no longer exists, and one came to
recognize the convergences between the three regimes of protection of the
rights of the human person, namely, the International Law of Refugees,
International Humanitarian Law and the International Law of Human Rights.
. Ibid., pp. 14-15.
24
. Ibid., pp. 431-432.
25
. Cf. text reproduced in: UNHCR, Memoria del Vigésimo Aniversario de la Declaración de
Cartagena sobre los Refugiados (1984-2004), Mexico City/San José of Costa Rica, UNHCR,
2005, pp. 385-398.
26
. Cf. "Presentación por el Dr. A.A. Cançado Trindade del Comité de Consultores Jurídicos del
ACNUR" (Mexico City, 15.11.2004), in UNHCR, Memoria del Vigésimo Aniversario de la
Declaración de Cartagena..., op. cit. supra n. (27), pp. 368-369.
27
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