Editorial
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419201000201 |
| Date | 01 June 1992 |
| Published date | 01 June 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
EDITORIAL
After many years of being witness to the gross violations of human rights
taking place in so many of the Member States of the Organization of American
States, the international community now looks with hopeful eyes at the
developments in the American continent. The last years have seen processes
towards the restoration
of
democracy in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and
Paraguay, and currently there are steps being taken towards peace agreements
in Central American countries. Although there have been two major setbacks,
those
of
Haiti and Peru, we see a change in the way the Organization of
AmericanStates is reacting to sudden and non-legal interruptions of democracy,
a change which strengthens the idea that the Organization is finally attempting
to take steps to protect the principles of effective representative democracy and
respect for human rights, two principles that ought to be central pillars of the
inter-American system. The American continent is suddenly in a position of
having hopes again and of dedicating some of its energies to strengthen the
area of human rights instead of just holding the fort.
This positive development has prompted the Editorial Board to prepare an
issue of the Quarterly on the inter-American system under supervision of Ms.
Cecilia Medina. In this issue the reader will not find the usual testimonies of
disappearances, summary executions and curtailing of human rights in general
that characterized earlier articles on the area, although we are aware that these
phenomena still occur in the Americas. On the contrary, this issue attempts to
show that there is a change which requires a shifting of attention: first, towards
creation in the OAS Member States of a "deep-grounded respect for human
rights as the basis for personal relationships and for the relationship between
the Government and the governed", as we read in the article on Chile; second,
towards establishing a solid efficient preventive net at a national level which
will make of the regional system what it always should have been: a subsidiary
means to deal with isolated violations of human rights; and third, towards other
countries and other human rights which had received less emphasis because of
the urgency to handle the grossest human rights violations.
The task for the future can be partially found in the article on Chile, which
deals with obstacles and challenges that the new Chilean Government and
Chilean society face to restore confidence in the rule of law and to make
amends with the past. Of the human rights that deserve more attention, social,
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