Publicado el 06-08-2012
The OAS Should Retain
its Importance
Many governments that form the inter-American system that has its highest expression in the Organization of American States, which is the oldest regional institution in the world, are to blame for the fact that its activities go unnoticed. And, often, they are to blame because many activities of the OAS, which was born at the 1948 General Assembly in Bogotá, that used to be important now do not receive the constant and strong support that its high inter-American mission deserves. It should be remembered that the OAS took that name in 1948, but it had been working long before that through different stages of development since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. In that development there are stages and events that were extremely significant and that still should have today the same importance that they had in the past, generally speaking.
The assemblies or many meetings of what then was the Pan-American Union had great inter-American significance, and they were also noticed by the rest of the world. That significance began with the hierarchy of delegations of the American states, when they were 21 republics whose highest leaders, including Foreign Relations Ministers and sometimes presidents attended those meetings. In those meetings measures were taken that climaxed in important international treaties among them, to mention only one, the one regarding the right to diplomatic and territorial asylum. Furthermore, extremely delicate inter-American conflicts were analyzed and more or less solved in these conferences.
For example, one of its most important achievements was the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance of 1947, also known as the Rio de Janeiro Treaty, which served as the model for a global treaty. In those days the activities of what later became the Organization of American States were taken seriously by all the governments in the regional system and its activities had considerable academic, historic and, of course, political and juridical reaches.
The 42nd General Assembly has just closed in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with the creation of the Social Charter of the OAS. However, the meeting was characterized by attacks against the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Inter-American Human Rights Court. The ALBA countries, a group formed by Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez, are the OAS main opponents, demanding changes or its disappearance. This is a conspiracy against Inter-American peace and security.
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