2. Standard of review 44. Before embarking on its analysis of the merits, the Inter-American Commission considers it relevant to reiterate its previous rulings regarding the heightened scrutiny to be used in cases involving the death penalty. The right to life has received broad recognition as the supreme human right and as a sine qua non for the enjoyment of all other rights. 45. That gives rise to the particular importance of the IACHR’s obligation to ensure that any deprivation of life may arise from the enforcement of the death penalty strictly abides by the requirements set forth in the applicable instruments of the Inter-American Human Rights System, including the American Declaration. 42 That “heightened scrutiny test is consistent with the restrictive approach adopted by other international human rights bodies in cases involving the imposition of the death penalty, 43 and it has been set out and applied by the Inter-American Commission in previous capital cases brought before it. 44 46. As the Inter-American Commission has explained, this standard of review is the necessary consequence of the specific penalty at issue and the right to a fair trial and all attendant due process guarantees:45 due in part to its irrevocable and irreversible nature, the death penalty is a form of punishment that differs in substance as well as in degree in comparison with other means of punishment, and therefore warrants a particularly stringent need for reliability in determining whether a person is responsible for a crime that carries a penalty of death.46 47. The Inter-American Commission will therefore review the petitioner’s allegations in the present case with a heightened level of scrutiny, to ensure in particular that the rights to life, the prohibition of cruel, infamous or unusual punishment, due process, and to a fair trial as prescribed under the American Declaration have been respected by the State. With regard to the legal status of the American Declaration, the IACHR reiterates that: “[t]he American Declaration is, for the Member States not parties to the American Convention, the source of international obligations related to the OAS Charter. The Charter of the Organization gave the IACHR the principal function of promoting the observance and protection of human rights in the Member States. Article 106 of the OAS Charter does not, however, list or define those rights. The General Assembly of the OAS at its Ninth Regular Period of Sessions, held in La Paz, Bolivia, in October, 1979, agreed that those rights are those enunciated and defined in the American Declaration. Therefore, the American Declaration crystallizes the fundamental principles recognized by the American States. The OAS General Assembly has also repeatedly recognized that the American Declaration is a source of international obligations for the member states of the OAS.47 See, in this respect, IACHR, The death penalty in the Inter-American System of Human Rights: From restrictions to abolition, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.Doc. 68, December 31, 2011. 43 See, for example: I/A Court H. R., Advisory Opinion OC-16/99 (October 1, 1999), The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law, para. 136 (finding that “because execution of the death penalty is irreversible, the strictest and most rigorous enforcement of judicial guarantees is required of the State so that those guarantees are not violated and a human life is not arbitrarily taken as a result”); United Nations Human Rights Committee, Baboheram-Adhin et al. v. Suriname, Communications Nos. 148-154/1983, adopted on April 4, 1985, para. 14.3 (observing that “the law must strictly control and limit the circumstances in which a person may be deprived of his life by the authorities of a State”); Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Bacre Waly Ndiaye, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1994/82, Question of the Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in any part of the World, with particular reference to Colonial and Other Dependent Countries and Territories, UN Doc.E/CN.4/1995/61 (December 14, 1994) (“the Ndiaye Report”), para. 378 (emphasizing that in capital cases, it is the application of the standards of fair trial to each and every case that needs to be ensured and, in case of indications to the contrary, verified, in accordance with the obligation under international law to conduct exhaustive and impartial investigations into all allegations of violation of the right to life). 44 IACHR, Report No. 11/15, Case 12.833, Merits (Publication), Felix Rocha Diaz, United States, March 23, 2015, para. 54; Report No. 44/14, Case 12.873, Merits (Publication), Edgar Tamayo Arias, United States, July 17, 2014, para. 127; Report No. 57/96, Andrews, United States, IACHR Annual Report 1997, para. 170-171. 45 IACHR, The death penalty in the Inter-American System of Human Rights: From restrictions to abolition, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.Doc. 68, December 31, 2011, para. 41. 46 IACHR, Report No. 78/07, Case 12.265, Merits (Publication), Chad Roger Goodman, The Bahamas, October 15, 2007, para. 34. 47 IACHR, Report No. 44/14, Case 12,873, Report on Merits (Publication), Edgar Tamayo Arias, United States, July 17, 2014, para. 214. 42 9