25
and constitute its purpose, have not formed part of its daily agenda. The Organization
cannot overlook and eschew debating issues surrounding the failure by some of its
Member States to comply with the pacta sunt servanda principle and with a judgment
ordering reparations issued by the human rights jurisdictional body of the
Organization. If the OAS is to be revitalized, it will have to address these issues and to
avoid becoming a mere international cooperation agency. The development in the
case of Hilaire, Constantine, Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago, where a State
Party to a case before the Court refuses to inform the Court of the manner in which it
complied with its judgment (Article 68 of the Convention), without any reaction by the
political bodies of the Organization, sets a bad precedent. It is to be hoped that there
will never be another case alike and that the above-mentioned State will inform the
Court of the compliance with the reparations ordered in this Judgment in the case of
Caesar.
IX
CONCLUSIONS
35.
The Organization of American States is by nature a political forum, essentially
designed to promote democracy and, consequently, the dignity of the human being.
36.
To this end, the Inter-American human rights system was established, having
among its protection organs the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The latter jurisdictional body issues judgments
which are binding upon the States Party to the American Convention on Human Rights
(Article 68 thereof).
37.
Although the American Convention on Human Rights was based on the
[European] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and the Fundamental
Freedoms of 1950, it failed to establish a body such as the Council of Ministers to
Monitor compliance with the judgments pronounced by the Court, as the European
Convention did.
38.
As a result, Article 65 of the American Convention has a completeness gap that
must be filled, because even though it prescribes that the Court must inform the OAS
of a failure to comply with any of its judgments, it failed to establish an institutional
procedure within the OAS to carry that out, and because the procedure established by
the Organization does not provide the General Assembly, the Organization’s highest
decision-making body, with the means either to learn about non-compliances with
judgments pronounced by the Court or to make decisions concerning such noncompliance.
39.
The high degree of compliance with the Court’s judgments is one of the
greatest achievements of the Inter-American human rights protection system.43
However, debating the non-compliances with judgments pronounced by the Court in a
permanent forum of the OAS, which could take the form of a working group, would
43
Cf. GARCÍA RAMÍREZ, SERGIO: La Jurisdicción Internacional. Derechos Humanos y la Justicia Penal,
Porrúa, Mexico, 2003, pp. 126-130 and 557; and SAAVEDRA ALESSANDRI, PABLO: La Corte Interamericana
de Derechos Humanos. Las Reparaciones Ordenadas y el Acatamiento de los Estados, in “Los Instrumentos
de Protección Regional e Internacional de los Derechos Humanos”, Seminar Proceedings, Cooperation
Program on Human Rights, Mexico-European Commission, Ministry of Foreing Relations, pp. 185-220.
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