3
Conventions of 1949 on International Humanitarian Law (Article 1) and the Additional
Protocol I of 1977 to these latter (Article 1(1)). In its turn, the general duty of Article 2 of
the American Convention on Human Rights also has equivalents, in its Additional Protocol of
1988 on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 2), in the Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (Article 2(2))0, in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (Article
1), and in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Article 2(1)).
8.
In fact, those two general obligations, - which are added to the other specific
conventional obligations concerning each of the protected rights, - are incumbent upon the
States Parties by the application of International Law itself, of a general principle (pacta
sunt servanda) whose source is metajuridical, in seeking to be based, beyond the individual
consent of each State, on considerations concerning the binding character of the duties
derived from international treaties. In the present domain of protection, the States Parties
have the general obligation, arising from a general principle of International Law, to take all
measures of domestic law to guarantee the effective protection (effet utile) of the
recognized rights.0
9.
The two general obligations enshrined in the American Convention - that of
respecting and guaranteeing the protected rights (Article 1(1)) and that of harmonizing
domestic law with the international norms of protection (Article 2) - appear to me to be
ineluctably intertwined. Hence, the breach of Article 2 always brings about, in my view, the
violation likewise of Article 1(1). The violation of Article 1(1) takes place whenever there is
a breach of Article 2. And in cases of violation of Article 1(1) there is a strong presumption
of non-compliance with Article 2, by virtue, e.g., of insufficiencies or lacunae of the
domestic legal order as to the regulation of the conditions of the exercise of the protected
rights. There is, likewise, no underestimating of the obligation of Article 2, inasmuch as it
confers precision to the immediate and fundamental obligation of Article 1(1), of which it
appears as almost a corollary. The obligation of Article 2 requires the adoption of the
legislation needed to give effect to the conventional norms of protection, filling in eventual
4
Provision which served as source of Article 2 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which was only
included in this latter at an already late stage of its preparatory work. Cf. OAS, International Specialized Conference
on Human Rights - Proceedings and Documents (San José of Costa Rica, 07-22 July 1969), doc.
OEA/Ser.K/XVI/1.2, pp. 38, 104, 146, 148, 295, 309, 440 and 481.
5
One may recall, for instance, that under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in the J. D. Herrera
Rubio case, the Human Rights Committee, in its Views of 02 November 1987, concluded that the respondent State
(Colombia) had not taken the measures needed to prevent the disappearance and death of the parents of the
author of the communication, and to undertake adequate investigations, and that it accordingly had the duty, under
Article 2 of the Covenant, to adopt effective measures of reparations, and to proceed with the investigations, and
to take measures to ensure that similar violations did not occur in future. Cf. International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol, vol. II, 1990, pp.
194-195. - In another case, that of O.R., M.M. and M.S. versus Argentina, the U.N. Committee against Torture
(under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment), in its decision of 23 November 1989, in spite of declaring the communications (ns. 1/1988, 2/1988
and 3/1988) inadmissible ratione temporis (inasmuch as the Convention could not apply retroactively), expressed
nevertheless its view that the national laws at issue ("Ley de Punto Final" and "Ley de Obediencia Debida", this
latter enacted after the respondent State had ratified the aforementioned Convention and only 18 days before that
Convention entered into force) were "incompatible with the spirit and purpose" of the United Nations Convention
against Torture. The Committee observed that, although its competence was limited to violations of that
Convention, it could not fail to indicate that, "even before the entry into force of the Convention against Torture,
there was a general rule of international law that obliged all States to take effective measures to prevent torture
and to punish acts of torture." Lastly, the Committee urged the State Party at issue to adopt "appropriate
measures" of reparation. Cf. U.N., Report of the Committee against Torture, G.A.O.R. - XLV Session, 1990, pp.
111-112.