2 Having made this precision, I go on to refer to the trajectory of the right to an effective recourse in time. II. Genesis of the Right to an Effective Recourse before the Domestic Courts in the Corpus Juris of the International Law On Human Rights. 5. The travaux préparatoires of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights followed different stages. The Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations decided to elaborate a project in April/ May of 1946, when it appointed a “nuclear commission” for the initial studies. At the same time, the UNESCO consulted (in 1947) with thinkers of that time on the basis of a future Universal Declaration. 1 The project of the Declaration itself was prepared within the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations, by a Work Group that elaborated it between May 1947 and June of 1948. As of September of 1948, the Declaration project went on to be examined by the III Commission of the General Meeting of the United Nations, and then finally approved on December 10th of the same year by the same Meeting.2 One of the most relevant stipulations of the Universal Declaration of 1948 is found in Article 8, according to which every person has the right to an effective recourse before the competent national courts against the acts that violate the fundamental rights granted to him by the Constitution or the law. 6. The mentioned Article 8 enshrines, in its final analysis, the right to access justice (within domestic law), an essential element of all democratic society. The project for the article that turned into the mentioned Article 8 of the Universal Declaration, despite its relevance, was only inserted in the text in the final stage of the travaux préparatoires of the Universal Declaration, when the matter was already under examination in the III Commission of the General Meeting of the United Nations. However, it did not have any significant objection, being approved in the III Commission by 46 votes against zero and three abstentions, and unanimously in the full session of the General Meeting. The initiative, late but so successful, came from the Delegations of the Latin American States. It can even be considered that Article 8 (on the right to an effective recourse) represents the Latin American contribution par excellence to the Universal Declaration. 7. The stipulation of Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of 1948 was inspired, in effect, on the equivalent stipulation of Article XVIII of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man of eight months before (April of 1948)3. The basic argument that led to the inclusion of this precept in the American and Universal Declarations of 1948 consisted in the acknowledgment of the need to fill a void in both: protect the 1 UNESCO, Los Derechos del Hombre - Estudios y Comentarios en torno a la Nueva Declaración Universal, México/ Buenos Aires, Economic Culture Fund, 1949, pp. 233-246. 2 For an account, cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, Tratado de Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos, vol. I, 2nd. ed., Porto Alegre/Brazil, S.A. Fabris Ed., 2003, chapter I, pp. 51-77. 3 Said Latin American initiative was strongly influenced in the principles that govern the appeal for legal protection, already enshrined in the national legislations of many countries of the region. So much so that in the Conference of Bogota on April of 1948, the mentioned American Declaration adopted its Article XVIII unanimously by the 21 Delegations present. On the legacy of the American Declaration of 1948, cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, "O Legado da Declaração Universal de 1948 e o Futuro da Proteção Internacional dos Direitos Humanos", 14 Anuario Hispano-Luso-Americano de Derecho Internacional (1999) pp. 197-238.