1. HUMAN RIGHTS LAW. Ahmed T. Ghandour.

2. CHAPTER 6. THE AMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS.

3. II. THE RIGHTS PROTECTED.

4.  We must know that according to Art. 1 of the Convention:  The States Parties to this Convention undertake to respect the rights and freedoms recognized herein and to  ensure to all persons subject to their jurisdiction the free and full exercise of those rights and freedoms, without any discrimination.  The protected rights are:  Article 3. Right to Juridical Personality.  Article 4. Right to Life.  Article 5. Right to Humane Treatment.  Article 6. Freedom from Slavery.  Article 7. Right to Personal Liberty.

5.  Article 8. Right to a Fair Trial.  Article 9. Freedom from Ex Post Facto Laws.  Article 10. Right to Compensation.  Article 11. Right to Privacy.  Article 12. Freedom of Conscience and Religion.  Article 13. Freedom of Thought and Expression.  Article 14. Right of Reply.  Article 15. Right of Assembly.  Article 16. Freedom of Association.

6.  Article 17. Rights of the Family.  Article 18. Right to a Name.  Article 19. Rights of the Child.  Article 20. Right to Nationality.  Article 21. Right to Property.  Article 22. Freedom of Movement and Residence.  Article 23. Right to Participate in Government.

7. IMPORTANT TO NOTICE !  There is a similarity between the rights have been mentioned in the Convention and the rights had mentioned in The International Covenant on Political Rights.  There are more rights have been mentioned within the American Convention.  The rights also included the economic rights in the same document.  The rights have been written in details within the Convention; for example: Article 14.

8. ARTICLE 14.  Article 14. Right of Reply  1. Anyone injured by inaccurate or offensive statements or ideas disseminated to the public in general by a legally regulated medium of communication has the right to reply or to make a correction using the same communications outlet, under such conditions as the law may establish.  2. The correction or reply shall not in any case remit other legal liabilities that may have been incurred.  3. For the effective protection of honor and reputation, every publisher, and every newspaper, motion picture, radio, and television company, shall have a person responsible who is not protected by immunities or special privileges.

9. III. THE SYSTEM OF INTERNATIONAL CONTROL.

10.  The Inter-American System for the protection of human rights is one of the world’s three regional human rights systems, and is responsible for monitoring and ensuring implementation of human rights guarantees in the 35 independent countries of the Americas that are members of the Organization of American States (OAS).  The Inter-American System is similar to European system, it is composed of two entities: a Commission and a Court. Both bodies can decide individual complaints concerning alleged human rights violations and may issue emergency protective measures when an individual or the subject of a complaint is in immediate risk of irreparable harm. The Commission also engages in a range of human rights monitoring and promotion activities, while the Court may issue advisory opinions on issues pertaining to the interpretation of the Inter-American instruments at the request of an OAS organ or Member State.

11. 1. THE ‘OLD FUNCTION’ OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION.

12.  Since its inception in 1959,' the Commission has offered a unique forum in the Western Hemisphere for the presentation of individual and collective denunciations of human rights violations by private individuals, attorneys, and human rights non governmental organizations (NGOs). Some of the very first complaints presented to the Commission in the  early 1960s were brought by victims and family members who had suffered human rights violations by the dictators of that era: Castro, Trujillo, Somoza, and Stroessner.2 Initially, however, the Commission was merely a creature of a resolution adopted by the foreign ministers of the OAS member states.3 The Commission's initial statute4 was weak and did not even empower the Commission to send individual communications to governments or oblige them to respond and explain what had transpired in given cases.'

13.  The Second Special Inter-American Conference remedied this defect in 1965 when it amended the Commission's statute, empowering it to receive and process individual petitions alleging human rights violations.  The new statute carried the concomitant duty for accused member states to respond to such petitions. The statute also authorized the Commission to publish resolutions containing conclusions and recommendations on petitions once the Commission had completed the necessary fact-finding. The widespread use of the IACHR as a complaint forum by private actors dates from the early 1970s when military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay engaged in large-scale repression. The Commission became a vehicle for the presentation of denunciations and the issuance of condemnations of this repression.  The same era gave birth to a host of human rights NGOs and saw the professionalization of a growing cadre of sophisticated human rights advocates who learned to use the tools of this emerging field of international law to represent victims and their families.

14. 2. THE ‘NEW FUNCTION’ OF THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION

15.  The IACHR is a principal and autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (“OAS”) whose mission is to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere. It is composed of seven independent members who serve in a personal capacity. Created by the OAS in 1959, the Commission has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Together with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Court” or “the I/A Court H.R.), installed in 1979, the Commission is one of the institutions within the inter- American system for the protection of human rights (“IAHRS”).  The formal beginning of the IAHRS was approval of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man at the Ninth International Conference of American States held in Bogota in 1948. There the OAS Charter (hereinafter “the Charter”) was adopted, which declares that one of the principles upon which the Organization is founded is the “fundamental rights of the individual.”

16.  Full respect for human rights appears in several sections of the Charter, underscoring the importance that the Member States attach to it. In the words of the Charter, “the true significance of American solidarity and good neighborliness can only mean the consolidation on this continent, within the framework of democratic institutions, of a system of individual liberty and social justice based on respect for the essential rights of man.” The Charter establishes the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as one of the principal organs of the OAS whose function is to promote the observance and protection of human rights and to serve as a consultative organ of the Organization in these matters.

17.  The work of the IACHR rests on three main pillars:  the individual petition system;  monitoring of the human rights situation in the Member States, and  the attention devoted to priority thematic areas.  Operating within this framework, the Commission considers that inasmuch as the rights of all persons subject to the jurisdiction of the Member States are to be protected, special attention must be devoted to those populations, communities and groups that have historically been the targets of discrimination. However, the Commission’s work is also informed by other principles, among them the following: the pro humane principle, whereby a law must be interpreted in the manner most advantageous to the human being; the necessity of access to justice, and the inclusion of the gender perspective in all Commission activities.

18. 3. THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

19.  The inter-American human rights system was born with the adoption of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man in Bogotá, Colombia in April of 1948. The American Declaration was the first international human rights instrument of a general nature. The IACHR was created in 1959 and held its first session in 1960. Since that time and until 2009, the Commission has held 134 sessions, some of them at its headquarters, others in different countries of the Americas.  By 1961, the IACHR had begun to carry out on-site visits to observe the general human rights situation in a country or to investigate specific situations. Since that time, the IACHR has carried out 69 visits to 23 member States. In relation to its visits for the observation of the general human rights situation of a country, the IACHR has published 44 special country reports to date.

20.  In 1965, the IACHR was expressly authorized to examine complaints or petitions regarding specific cases of human rights violations. Up until 1997, the IACHR has received thousands of petitions, which have resulted in 12,000 cases which have been processed or are currently being processed. (The procedure for the processing of individual cases is described below). The final published reports of the IACHR regarding these individual cases may be found in the Annual Reports of the Commission or independently by country.  In 1969, the American Convention on Human Rights was adopted. The Convention entered into force in 1978. As of August of 1997, it has been ratified by 25 countries: Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Convention defines the human rights which the ratifying States have agreed to respect and ensure. The Convention also creates the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and defines the functions and procedures of both the Commission and the Court. The IACHR also possesses additional faculties which pre-date and are not derived directly from the Convention, such as the processing of cases involving countries which are still not parties to the Convention.

21. 4. THE COMPETENCE OF THE COURT.