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The Third Summit of the Americas and the Thirty-First Session of the Oas General Assembly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Enrique Lagos  and
Timothy D. Rudy
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Current Developments
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American Journal of International Law , Volume 96 , Issue 1 , January 2002 , pp. 173 - 181
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Copyright © American Society of International Law 2002

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References

1 Declaration of Quebec City, para. 5, at <http://www.summit-americas.org> [hereinafter Quebec Declaration]. A general description of the Summit of the Americas process and the documents of the three summits that have been held (1994 in Miami, Florida; 1998 in Santiago, Chile; and 2001 in Quebec, Canada) are available online at <http://www.summit-americas.org>. The declarations and plans of action of the Miami and Santiago summits can also be found in OAS Office of Summit Follow-Up, 1 Official Documents of the Summit Process From Miami to Santiago (1998). The 2001 summit meeting, with particular emphasis on the Free Trade Area of the Americas, is discussed in Sean M. Murphy, Contemporary Practice of the United States, 95 AJIL 646 (2001).

2 Quebec Declaration, supra note 1, para. 6; OAS Press Release E-089/01 (Apr. 18,2001) (“Peru Submits Democratic Charter Proposal for OAS General Assembly Dialogue of Ministers”).

3 For the resolutions adopted by the 31st OAS General Assembly, see OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.P/AG/doc.4042/01 (June 5, 2001) [hereinafter 31st GA]. General Assembly resolutions and a wide variety of other OAS documents are available online at <http://www.oas.org>.

4 OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.P/AG/RES. 1838 (XXXI-O/01), operative para. 2 (June 5,2001) [hereinafter Resolution 1838], in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 221.

5 Inter-American Democratic Charter, rev. 7, in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 226–30.

6 Resolution 1838, supra note 4, operative para. 5, in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 222. Both the Permanent Council and General Assembly are OAS political organs on which each member state has one vote. The General Assembly is the OAS’s highest organ, with regular sessions scheduled annually (in June) at the foreign-minister level. The Permanent Council meets several times a month at the ambassador level. See Charter of the Organization of American States, opened for signature Apr. 30, 1948, Arts. 54, 56, 57, 80, 91, 2 UST 2394, OASTS 1-C & 61 (entered into force Dec. 13, 1951). The full text of the OAS Charter, as amended by all four protocols now in force, can be found at 33 ILM 989 (1994).

7 OAS Permanent Council, Convocation of the Twenty-Eighth Special Session of the General Assembly, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.G/CP/RES.793 (1283/01) (June 27, 2001). At that session, which took place on September 11, 2001, a significantly revised Inter-American Democratic Charter was adopted as a resolution. See OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.P/AG/RES.l(XXVffl-E/01) (Sept. 11,2001) [hereinafter Final Version]. The final version consists of twenty eight articles organized into six sections (rather than five). The additional, new section is entitled “Democracy, Integral Development, and Combating Poverty.” In order to help track the current discussion against the revised, final version of the document, separate notes will—at the first mention of each draft article in the text—provide the correlative article number in the final version.

8 The OAS General Assembly adopted Resolution 1836 to address reform of the inter-American system. Foreign ministers requested that the OAS secretary general provide a draft proposal for the restructuring and modernization of the OAS by October 31, 2001. Ministers also promised to consider that proposal at a future unscheduled special session of the General Assembly. See Modernization of the OAS and Renewal of the Inter-American System, OAS Doc. AG/RES.1836 (XXXI-O/01) (June 5, 2001), in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 217–18.

9 See Democracy in the Inter-American System (Inter-Am. Juridical Comm. Ann. Rep. to General Assembly, Eduardo Vio Grossi, Rapporteur), OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.G/CP/doc.2556/95, at 224 (1995) [hereinafter IAJC Report] (“Democracy in the Americas is no longer an act of internal or domestic jurisdiction or exclusive to the State, and this may presage what will take place at worldwide level.”).

10 Cooper, Andrew F. and Legler, Thomas, The OAS Democratic Solidarity Paradigm: Questions of Collective and National Leadership, 43 Latin Am. Pol. & Soc. 103, 110 (2001)Google Scholar. Mercosur includes the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

11 Quebec Declaration, supra note 1, para. 5.

12 Id.

13 Id. (“Having due regard for existing hemispheric, regional and sub-regional mechanisms, we agree to conduct consultations in the event of a disruption of the democratic system of a country that participates in the Summit process.”).

14 DePalma, Anthony, Talks Tie Trade in the Americas to Democracy, N.Y. Times, Apr. 23, 2001, at A1 Google Scholar; Milbank, Dana & Blustein, Paul, Leaders Affirm Free Trade Zone, Wash. Post, Apr. 23, 2001, at A1 Google Scholar.

15 See Richard E. Feinberg, Remarks at roundtable discussion entitled “Beyond Street Protests: What Did the Quebec Summit Deliver?” held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., Apr. 24, 2001 (notes on file with author).

16 Exactly the same states are members of the OAS and member-participants in the SOA process. Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere whose government was not represented at either the Quebec or San Jose meetings. Cuba had not been invited to the Quebec summit, and it was excluded from participation in OAS organs and activities by a vote of OAS foreign ministers in 1962. See Final Act, 8th Mtg. of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.X.12, Resolution VI, operative para. 3, at 14 (1962).

17 Resolution 1838, supra note 4, appendix, in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 225–26. Member-state delegations did not formally consult with either the Inter-American Juridical Committee (an OAS legal-advisory body) or the OAS Secretariat for Legal Affairs when they drafted the version of the democratic charter that was appended to Resolution 1838 and labeled as “Revision 7.”

18 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 19.

19 Protocol of Washington to the Charter of the Organization of American States, opened for signature Dec. 14,1992, oasts 1-E Rev., OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.A/2 Add. 3, reprinted in 33 ILM 1005 (1994) (entered into force Sept. 25,1997).

20 The OAS member states that have not ratified the Protocol of Washington as of July 1,2001, are: Antigua and Barbuda; Cuba; Dominica; the Dominican Republic; Grenada; Haiti; Jamaica; Mexico; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Suriname; and Trinidad and Tobago. The mechanism of amended Article 9 of the OAS Charter cannot be applied to those states until such time as they ratify the Protocol of Washington. See Protocol of Washington, supra note 19, Art. V; OAS Charter, supra note 6, Arts. 140, 142.

21 IAJC Report, supra note 9, at 200–01.

22 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 20.

23 See id., Art. 21.

24 OAS Doc. AG/RES.1080 (XXI-O/91) (June 5, 1991).

25 Id., Art. 1.

26 The OAS utilized Resolution 1080 for events in Haiti (1991–95), Peru (1992), Guatemala (1993), and Paraguay (1996). See generally Schnably, Stephen J., The Santiago Commitment as a Call to Democracy in the United States: Evaluating the OAS Role in Haiti, Peru, and Guatemala, 25 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 393 (1994)Google Scholar.

27 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 17.

28 See id., Art. 18.

29 NGO Press Conference, 31st OAS General Assembly (June 4, 2001), at <www.oas.org/Assembly2001/tests/videos/videos_eng.htm> (remarks of Warren Allmand).

30 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 21.

31 See id., Art. 22.

32 See id., Arts. 23–24.

33 See id., Art. 25.

34 Hakim, Peter, The Uneasy American, 80 Foreign Aff. 46, 50 (March/April 2001)Google Scholar.

35 See Final Version, supra note 7, Arts. 5, 26–28.

36 Resolution 1838, supra note 4, operative para. 3, in 31st GA, supra note 3, at 222.

37 The Inter-American Democratic Charter was adopted as a resolution of the OAS General Assembly. Acting with a view to Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, opened for signature May23, 1969, 1155 UNTS 331, negotiators added two paragraphs to the Preamble as evidence of the member states’ unanimous intention to interpret, but not to formally amend, the OAS Charter—Article 9, in particular. See Final Version, supra note 7, preambular paras. 19, 20.

38 OAS Charter, supra note 6, Arts. 140, 142.

19 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 3.

40 OAS Charter, supra note 6, Arts. 2(g), 3(f).

41 Declaration of Santiago, Final Act, 5th Mtg. of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.C/II.5, at 5 (1959).

42 American Convention on Human Rights, opened for signatureNov. 22, 1969, 1144 UNTS 123 (entered into force July 18, 1978).

43 Id.

44 IAJC Report, supra note 9, at 186 (traditional interpretation of representative democracy in OAS Charter excludes “direct democracy and the democracies known by other names”).

45 See Final Version, supra note 7, Art. 1.

46 See id., Art. 7.

47 Franck, Thomas M., The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance, 86 AJIL 46, 46 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A requirement under international law that governments need be democratic is viewed by some today as an international human right based on such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. See Cerna, Christina M., Universal Democracy: An International Legal Right or the Pipe Dream of the West?, 27 N.Y.U.J. Int’l L. & Pol. 289, 291, 294–98, 329 (1995)Google Scholar. This view on an emerging norm of democratic entitlement is not without its critics. See Susan Marks, The Riddle of All Constitutions: International Law, Democracy and the Critique Of Ideology (2000) (especially chapter 2). The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has never declared democracy per se an actual human right under the inter-American system. IAJC Report, supra note 9, at 194.

48 Now codified at Art. 3(d) of the OAS Charter, supra note 6.

49 OAS Charter, supra note 6, Art. 2(b).

50 IAJC Report, supra note 9, at 187.

51 Democracy in the Inter-American System, OAS Inter-American Juridical Committee Resolution, CJI/RES.I-3/95 (1995), in Annual Report of the Inter-American Juridical Committee to the General Assembly, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.G/CP/doc.2711/96, at 26 (1996).

52 Id., prin. 3.

53 Id., prin. 4.