3
much so, that Article 30 of the Statute, after alluding to the annual report and to the
indication of the cases in which States have not complied with the Court's judgments,
adds in the same paragraph that the Court “may also submit to the OAS General
Assembly proposals or recommendations on ways to improve the inter-American system
of human rights, insofar as they concern the work of the Court.” That is, if the Court
considers that the current system is inefficient or inadequate, the proper course is to
propose the modifications of that system that it considers necessary to the General
Assembly of the OAS, and not that it alter, through the Rules of Procedure, what has
been established in the Convention and the Statute.
Similarly, it is not appropriate to transform the regulatory mechanism of monitoring
compliance with judgment into the prolongation of the proceeding in which a judgment
has already been delivered, or into a new proceeding or, finally, into a device that, all
things considered, entails both an excuse for not informing the OAS General Assembly of
the failure to comply with the Court’s rulings, and grants the State an extension, without
any time limit, to comply with the judgment. And this is because, in this hypothesis, on
the one hand, the victims of the human rights violations are placed in a situation of
disadvantage, because they must continue litigating, this time against arguments relating
to domestic law that the State usually invokes in order not to comply with the Court’s
decision and that obviously were not admissible in the proceeding itself10 and, on the
other hand, the Court itself is placed in a position in which, without having the necessary
powers to enforce compliance with its judgments, it must resort to entreaties or to
political pressure in order to make the State in question honor the commitment to
Amendments shall enter into force for the States ratifying them on the date when two‐thirds of the States Parties to this
Convention have deposited their respective instruments of ratification. With respect to the other States Parties, the
amendments shall enter into force on the dates on which they deposit their respective instruments of ratification.”
Art. 39 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: “General rule regarding the amendment of treaties.
A treaty may be amended by agreement between the parties. The rules laid down in Part II apply to such an agreement
except in so far as the treaty may otherwise provide.”
Art. 40 idem: “Amendment of multilateral treaties .
1. Unless the treaty otherwise provides, the amendment of multilateral treaties shall be governed by the following
paragraphs.
2. Any proposal to amend a multilateral treaty as between all the parties must be notified to all the contracting States, each
one of which shall have the right to take part in:
(a) the decision as to the action to be taken in regard to such proposal;
(b) the negotiation and conclusion of any agreement for the amendment of the treaty.
3. Every State entitled to become a party to the treaty shall also be entitled to become a party to the treaty as amended.
4. The amending agreement does not bind any State already a party to the treaty which does not become a party to the
amending agreement; article 30, paragraph 4(b), applies in relation to such State.
5. Any State which becomes a party to the treaty after the entry into force of the amending agreement shall, failing an
expression of a different intention by that State:
(a) be considered as a party to the treaty as amended; and
(b) be considered as a party to the unamended treaty in relation to any party to the treaty not bound by the amending
agreement.”
10
Art. 27 idem: “Internal law and observance of treaties.
A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. This rule is without
prejudice to article 46.”