6
16.
In fact, despite the persistence of the problem of internal displacement along mainly
the last two decades, only in the first quarter of 1998, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
succeeded at last to adopt the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, aiming at
reinforcing and strengthening the already existing means of protection; to this effect, the
proposed new principles apply both to governments and insurgent groups, at all stages of the
displacement. The basic principle of non-discrimination occupies a central position in the
aforementioned document of 199819, which cares to list the same rights, of internally displaced
persons, which other persons in their country enjoy20.
17.
The 1998 Basic Principles referred to, determine that the displacement cannot take
place in a way that violates the rights to life, to dignity, to freedom and security of the affected
persons21; they also assert other rights, such as the right to respect for family life, the right to
an adequate standard of living, the right to equality before the law, the right to education22.
The basic idea underlying the whole document is in the sense that the internally displaced
persons do not lose their inherent rights, as a result of displacement, and can invoke the
pertinent international norms of protection to safeguard their rights.
18.
In the American continent, the 1984 Declarations of Cartagena on Refugees, the 1994
San José Declaration on Refugees and Displaced Persons, and the 2004 Mexico Declaration and
Plan of Action to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees in Latin America, are,
each of them, product of a given historical moment. The first one, the Declaration of
Cartagena, was motivated by urgent needs generated by a concrete crisis of great proportions;
to the extent that this crisis was being overcome, due in part to that Declaration, its legacy
began to project itself to other regions and subregions of the American continent.
19.
The second Declaration was adopted amidst a distinct crisis, a more diffuse one,
marked by the deterioration of the socio-economic conditions of wide segments of the
population in distinct regions. In sum, Cartagena and San José were product of their time. The
aggiornamento of the Colloquy of San José gave likewise a special emphasis on the
identification of the needs of protection of the human being in any circumstances23. There
de Protección del Ser Humano en el Inicio del Siglo XXI (eds. A.A. Cançado Trindade and J.
Ruiz de Santiago), 3rd. ed., San José of Costa Rica, Inter-American Court of Human
Rights/UNHCR, 2004, pp. 40-41, and cf. 27-86.
. Principles 1(1), 4(1), 22, 24(1).
19
. It affirms, moreover, the prohibition of the "arbitrary displacement" (Principle 6).
20
. Principles 8 and following.
21
. Principles 17, 18, 20 and 23, respectively.
22
. Instead of subjective categorizations of persons (in accordance with the reasons which led
them to abandon their homes), proper of the past, nowadays the objective criterion of the
needs of protection came to be adopted, encompassing thereby a considerably greater number
of persons (including the internally displaced persons) so vulnerable as the refugees, or even
more than these latter.
23
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