Maria Eugenia De Sierra )
)
Petitioner )
)
v. ) CASE NO. 11.625
)
GUATEMALA )
)
Respondent )
)
____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
I. INTRODUCTION
This statement is submitted in support of Petitioner in case number 11.625 before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Petitioner challenges the legality of various provisions of Title II, Chapter I of the Guatemalan Civil Code which regulate the marital rights and obligations of spouses in a manner that discriminates impermissibly on the basis of sex. Petitioner contends that the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Code violate the obligations Guatemala has undertaken as a state party to the American Convention, specifically, its obligations under Article 1.1. and Article 2 to respect and guarantee the rights recognized in Articles 17 and 24.
The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and the Inter-American Center for Human Rights submit this amicus brief in support of Petitioner because the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code also violate fundamental labor-related rights established in the American Convention and in various other international human rights instruments, most particularly, the four ILO Conventions discussed below.
Discrimination against women in the allocation of family responsibilities has a direct impact on women's employment opportunities, denying women the equal right to seek remunerative employment and to enjoy the increased autonomy and self-determination such employment affords. Moreover, the legal imposition of disproportionate responsibility for childcare services and domestic work constitutes a form of forced labor, which cannot be justified in light of the commitments Guatemala has undertaken to combat the reproduction of stereotypical gender roles. Equally significant, discrimination against women in the allocation of family responsibilities has a direct impact on the future viability of the labor movement throughout the American states. Labor rights are human rights, and the Inter-American system should develop its jurisprudence in a manner that directly addresses the labor related issues implicated in human rights violations.
II. INTERESTS OF AMICI
The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC that focuses its work on issues of worker's rights in the international economy. ILRF has been an active observer in Guatemala for some time. It filed petitions to request review of Guatemala's Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) status for each of the seven years the GSP program's start in 1984. In 1992, the GSP Petition was finally accepted for a review which will come to a close on November 1, 1995. The Fund also sponsored James A. Goldston's 1988 study, Shattered Hope: Guatemalan Workers and the Promise of Democracy. ILRF will discuss the significance of this case in light of its particular expertise in international labor law.
The Inter-American Center for Human Rights is a broad consortium of immigrant advocacy organizations, direct-service providers and international human rights and civil rights law experts from five South Florida institutions of higher education. The Center undertakes human rights litigation, advocacy on behalf of immigrants and asylum-seekers and human and civil-rights education in South Florida high schools and correctional institutions. The Inter-American Center is an independent non-profit organization, unaffiliated with any government organization. The Center will discuss the significance of this case in light of its particular expertise in international human rights and labor law.
III. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Petitioner's submission challenges various provisions of Title II, Chapter I of the Guatemalan Civil Code, which regulates the rights and obligations incident to marriage and family life. Amici will not repeat the Petitioner's comprehensive analysis of these provisions, but will focus only on the provisions of the Code that most directly impact upon the labor-related rights established by the American Convention and various ILO Conventions ratified by Guatemala. Specifically, Amici challenge the legality of Articles 110, 111, 113 and 114.
Art. 110 establishes the division of labor between spouses in the family. Husbands are responsible for "protecting and assisting" their wives and for providing economic support "within their means." Women are responsible for child care and domestic work. (1) According to Petitioner, this legally imposed division of labor not only enforces the stereotypical gender roles through which women are denied equal rights to participate fully in all areas of civil and political society, it also masks the extent to which women are burdened with greater responsibilities in the home. Art. 110 creates the appearance that the gendered division of labor between the spouses is fair because the wife's domestic obligations are balanced against the husband's obligation to provide economic support. Art. 111, however, requires the wife to provide economic support in any instances where she has an independent source of income or the husband is unable to support the family. (2) In this way, the Code establishes a legal regime in which women must provide child care and domestic services and economic support, while men are obligated only to provide such economic support as is within their means, with no obligations to provide child care or domestic services, even in instances where they are not earning sufficient income to support the family.
Under Art. 113, married women can accept employment, practice a profession, accept a public office or engage in commercial activities only when such activity does not interfere with their child care obligations and other domestic responsibilities. (3) Additionally, even when the wife's outside activities do not interfere with her domestic responsibilities, Art. 114 enables the husband to oppose the wife's involvement in activities outside the home, so long as he earns enough to support the family and his reasons for opposing her outside activities are reasonably justified. Art. 114 further provides that if the husband and wife disagree, the matter will be decided by a judge. (4)
According to Petitioner, the challenged provisions establish the rights and obligations of spouses in a manner that discriminates against women on the basis of sex, imposes on women disproportionate family responsibilities and, therefore, violates the following Articles of the American Convention:
(a) Art. 17, ¶ 2, which affirms the primacy of the nondiscrimination principle in the regulation of the right to marry and raise a family, and
(b) Art. 17, ¶ 4, which requires states to the ensure equality of rights and responsibilities between spouses, both during and upon dissolution of marriage, and
(c) Article 24, which establishes the right to equal protection of the law for all persons, without discrimination. (5)
Amici incorporate by reference the arguments advanced by Petitioner and further direct the Commission's attention to the impact of the challenged provisions on the enjoyment of basic labor-related rights established by the American Convention and various other international human rights instruments ratified by Guatemala. More specifically, Amici contend that the challenged provisions violate Art. 16 of the American Convention which guarantees to every person the right of free association for political, economic, labor, social, cultural, or other purposes. (6)
Additionally, Amici urge the Commission to exercise its authority to interpret other international instruments concerning the protection of human rights in the American states to find the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code to violate various ILO Conventions, (7) in particular:
1. Convention No. 156, Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981; Family Responsibilities Recommendation, 1981 (8)
2. Convention No. 29, Forced Labor Convention, 1930; (9)
3. Convention No. 105, Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957. (10)
IV. THE RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED ON WOMEN'S RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE THE HOME VIOLATE GUATEMALA'S OBLIGATION TO GUARANTEE TO EVERY PERSON THE RIGHT OF FREE ASSOCATION WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEX
A. The Guatemalan Civil Code Fails to Ensure That Women's Rights of Free Association Will Not Be Unnecessarily Restricted.
Articles 113 and 114 of the Guatemalan Civil Code are in direct violation of Guatemala's obligations to guarantee to every person the right of free association for political, economic, labor, social, cultural, or other purposes under Article 16, ¶ 1 of the American Convention. Clearly, the right of free association includes the activities regulated under Articles 113. Indeed, this right would mean little if it did not encompass the rights to accept employment, practice a profession, accept a public office or participate in a labor organization or commercial activities.
Although the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that children receive necessary care, attention and supervision, the restrictions Articles 113 and 114 impose on women's freedom of assocation cannot be justified under Article 16, ¶2. This paragraph provides that the right of free assocation may be restricted only when necessary to secure the interests of "national security, public safety or public order, or to protect public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others." However, Art. 114 authorizes a woman's husband to prevent her from exercising rights of free assocation even in instances where the woman's engagement in associational activities outside the home would not interfere with her domestic responsibilities under Art. 113. Under Art. 114, the husband need only prove that he is able to support the family and that his reasons for objecting to her activities outside the home are "reasonably justified." By commiting women's rights of free association to the broad discretion of their husbands (or reviewing judges), Art. 114 fails to ensure that women's rights of free association will be restricted only when necessary to secure the interests delineated in ¶2 of Article 16.
B. The Restrictions Imposed on Women's Right of Free Association are Likely to Have an Increasingly Negative Impact on the Future Viability of the Labor Movement Given the Increasing Employment of Women in the New International Division of Labor.
The restrictions Articles 113 and 114 impose upon women's right to free association also violate Guatemala's obligation, under Articles 1.1 and 24 of the American Convention, to guarantee the equal protection of the law for all persons, without discrimination on the basis of sex. This form of discrimination, which is designed to enforce the gender stereotyped division of labor established by Articles 110 and 111, impinges impermissibly on the ability of labor unions to organize women workers. As the number of women in the work force continues to increase, gendered stereotypes and traditional roles that prevent women from fully participating in workers associations deprive the labor movement of access to the energies, commitment and engagement of the largest growing sector of workers.
Employers are increasingly hiring women because women will often accept lower wages and unstable employment conditions more readily than male workers. (11) Unions have found it difficult to organize women workers, often noting that women are less interested and have less time to involve themselves in union activitity because of their domestic responsibilities and because of the pressure they receive from their husbands. (12)
Articles 113 and 114 convert the obstacles occasioned by gendered stereotypes and male resistance to new gender roles into a legal right for husbands to prevent their wives from engaging in union activity. This, in turn, creates a serious threat to the future viability of the labor movement in the Americas precisely because that future depends on organizing the women, who are currently being employed precisely because their lack of organization makes them more vulnerable to labor exploitation.
C. The Discriminatory Allocation of Family Responsibilities and Restrictions Imposed on Women's Rights of Free Association are Directly Implicated in Maintaining Sex-Segregated Occupations.
There is abundant evidence linking women's poverty and economic subordination to employment practices that maintain sex-segregated occupations both in the United States (13) and throughout the Third World. (14) These employment practices include discriminatory refusal to hire women for jobs traditionally occupied by men as well as the suppression of wage rates in jobs that are occupied primarily by women. These employment practices, in turn, construct the sex-segregated occupational structures which reinforce women's economic subordination even as women enter the workforce in increasing numbers.
The important point, however, is that the employment practices through which sex-segregated occupational structures are constructed are linked directly to the sex-based division of labor in the family. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that "the origins of sex-segregated occupations are found in the unequal division of labor within the family." (15) This is because employers often justify employment practices channelling women into low pay, dead end jobs with few employment benefits on the grounds that women are temporary and fundamentally unreliable workers precisely because of their family responsibilities. As one commentator has noted:
Those attributes that women bring to the labour market by virtue of family obligations and socialization are used by employers to select them for the secondary sector ... Women's cheap, flexible and disposable labour power, their situation both when employed and unemployed, stems fundamentally from their actual and assumed role in the family. (16)
Rather than protecting the family, the discriminatory allocation of family responsibilities and restrictions on womens' rights of free association in the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code contribute directly to maintaining the sex-segregated occupational structures through which women are channelled into low wage, dead-end jobs, as well as the practices through which wages and other job-related benefits are suppressed in jobs occupied primarily by women. As a result of these practices, women are denied equal rights to obtain remunerative employment and to enjoy the increased autonomy and self-determination such employment affords.
Moreover, to the extent women's participation in the workforce is occasioned by their husbands' inability to earn enough to support their families (or indeed, by the absence of a male wage earner in the family), discrimination against women workers, based on counterfactual assumptions that women's wages are a secondary source of discretionary income for families supported primarily by men, will only restrict women's ability to lift their families out of poverty through wage labor.
V. THE DISCRIMINATORY ALLOCATION OF FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS OF FREE ASSOCIATION VIOLATE GUATEMALA'S OBLIGATION UNDER VARIOUS INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION CONVENTIONS
A. The Challenged Provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code Violate the Commitments Undertaken by State Parties to the Workers With Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981
The challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code are in direct violation of the principles articulated in the Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981, which Guatemala ratified on January 6, 1994. After acknowledging that "a change in the traditional role of men as well as of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality between men and women" (17) and "that many of the problems facing all workers are aggravated in the case of workers with family responsibilities," (18) the State Parties to the Convention undertake to make it their national policy
(a) to enable persons with family responsibilities who are engaged or wish to engage in employment to exercise their right to do so without being subject to discrimination and to the extent possible, without conflict between their employment and family responsibilities. Article 3 ¶ 1.
(b) to take measures "compatible with national conditions and possibilities" to enable workers with family responsibilities to exercise their right to free choice of employment. Article 4(a).
(c) to take appropriate measures to promote information and education which engender broader public understanding of the principle of equality of opportunity and treatment for men and women workers and of the problems of workers with family responsibilities, as well as a climate of opinion conducive to overcoming these problems. Article 6.
(d) that family responsibilities shall not, as such, constitute a valid reason for termination of employment. Article 8.
The challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code are in direct violation of each of the above noted provisions of the Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention. Rather than adopting policies to combat the cultural dominance of gendered stereotypes that restrict the right to equal employment opportunities for workers with family responsibilities, Guatemala takes the erroneous and illegal position that, in determining the rights and obligations of the spouses incident to marriage, national traditions and customs take priority over the norms and commitments established by international human rights instruments. (19)
B. The Challenged Provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code Violate the Prohibitions Against Forced Labour in the Forced Labour Convention, 1930; Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957; and Article 6 of the American Convention.
This case affords the Commission the opportunity to enforce the prohibitions against compulsory labor in the American Convention and in various ILO Conventions ratified by Guatemala, in a context that will significantly further the protection of women's human rights. As discussed above, the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code allocate family responsibilities in a manner that discriminates against women on the basis of gendered stereotypes, restricts women's equal opportunity to participate in all areas of civil and political society and imposes on working women the substantial burdens of a "second shift," once their wage work is completed for the day. (20)
The impact of these provisions is to establish a division of labor in the family that imposes significant burdens and restrictions on women and enforces, both de jure and defacto, a form of compulsory labor prohibited by
(a) Article 6 ¶ 2 of the American Convention; and (21)
(b) Article 2, ¶1 of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, which Guatemala ratified on June 13, 1989. (22)
Equally important, because this division of labour is based solely and completely on gendered stereotypes about the proper role of women in society, it operates as a means of social discrimination in direct violation of the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957, Article 1(e) which Guatemala ratified on December 9, 1959. (23)
To be sure, both the American Convention, and the relevant ILO conventions establish exceptions to the prohibition against forced labor and provide that the imposition of certain obligations will not be considered to constitute forced or compulsory labor. (24) Indeed, both the American Convention and the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, exclude "work or service that forms part of normal civic obligation." (25)
The question, therefore, is whether Guatamela's failure to eliminate the compulsory labor exacted from women through the provisions of its Family Code can be excluded from the prohibitions of the Conventions as "work or service that forms part of normal civic obligation." The answer is no. The assignation of rights and obligations on the basis of sex is expressly prohibited in numerous international instruments adopted by Guatemala and fundamental to the emerging human rights regime in the Inter-American System.
The state cannot secure the services need to maintain the family in a manner that discriminates against women or that violates the equal protection of the law.
Amici, therefore, urge the Commission to find that those provisions of the Guatemalan Family Code that require women to assume exclusive responsibility for child care and domestic services in the home and enforce these obligations by restricting womens' rights of free assocation outside the home establish a form of compulsory labor in violation of the prohibitions of both the American Convention and the various ILO Conventions Guatemala has ratified.
VI. CONCLUSION
The ILRF and the Inter-American Center for Human Rights strongly urge the Inter-American Commission to find the challenged provisions of the Guatemalan Civil Code, particularly Articles 110, 111, 113 and 114 to violate the obligations Guatemala has undertaken as a state party to the American Convention, specifically, its obligations under Article 1.1. and Article 2 to respect and guarantee the rights recognized in Articles 6, 16, 17 and 24 as well as its obligations under the following ILO Conventions: Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981; the Forced Labour Convention, 1930; and Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957.
The ILRF and Inter-American Center believe that the issues involved in this case are serious enough to warrant the Commission's review. The case offers the Commission an opportunity to promote the further harmonization of the Inter-American system by reaffirming and enforcing the obligations state parties have undertaken to bring their domestic laws into compliance with the provisions of the American Convention On Human Rights. (26)
Equally important, this case offers the Commission an opportunity to reaffirm the fundamental principle of equal protection before the law, a principle established in numerous
international instruments concerning the protection of human rights in the Americas. Reaffirming the right to equal protection is particularly important at a time when women's freedom to participate equally in all aspects of civil and political life may be the only way to prevent the increasing exploitation of women workers and to ensure the future viability of the labor movement, given the free trade regimes, neoliberal flexibilization, international division of labor and hypermobility of capital that is currently restructuring production throughout the Americas.
Respectfully Submitted,
_________________________
Elizabeth M. Iglesias
Board Member
Inter-American Center for
Human Rights
1. Artículo 110 - El marido debe protección y asistencia a su mujer, y está obligado a suministrarle lo necesario para el sostenimiento del hogar de acuerdo con sus posibilidades económicas. La mujer tiene especialmente el derecho y la obligación de atender y cuidar a sus hijos durante la menor edad y dirigir los quehaceres domésticos.
2. Artículo 111 - La mujer deberá también contribuir equitativamente al sostenimiento del hogar, si tuviere bienes propios o desempeñare algún empleo, profesión, oficio o comercio; pero si el marido estuviere imposibilitado para trabajar y careciere de bienes propios, la mujer cubrirá todos los gastos con los ingresos que reciba.
3. Artículo 113 -- La mujer podrá desempeñar un empleo, ejercer una profesión, industria, oficio o comercio, cuando ello no perjudique el interés y cuidado de los hijos ni las demas atenciones del hogar.
4. Artículo 114 -- El marido puede oponerse a que la mujer se dedique a actividades fuera del hogar, siempre que suministre lo necesario para el sostenimiento del mismo y su oposición tenga motivos suficientemente justificados. El juez resolverá de plano lo que sea procedente.
5. Moreover, Petitioner contends that Guatemala's failure to bring its domestic laws into compliance with these Articles places it in flagrant violation of its obligations under Article 1.1 (to respect and guarantee the rights established by the Convention without discrimination on the basis of sex) and Article 2; (to take such steps (including legislative reforms) as necessary to bring its laws into compliance with its obligation to give effect to the rights and freedoms established by the Convention).
6. IV. Article 16. Freedom of Assocation.
¶1. Everyone has the right to associate freely for ideological, religious, political, economic, labor, social, cultural, sports or other purposes.
¶2. The exercise of this right shall be subject only to such restrictions established by law as may be necessary in a democratic society, in the interest of national security, public safety or public order, or to protect public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others.
7. Article 64(1) provides that "The member states of the Organization may consult the Court regarding the interpretation of this Convention or of other treaties concerning the protection of human rights in the American states. Within their spheres of competence, the organs listed in Chapter X of the Charter of the Organization of American States, as amended by the Protocol of Buenos Aires, may in like manner consult the Court." (italics added) The Inter-American Commission is an organ listed in Chapter X of the Charter; hence the Commission has authority to consult the Court with respect to "other treaties concerning the protection of human rights in the American states." ILO Conventions operate as treaties among the state parties that ratify them. See Neumann & Weisbrodt, INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS (Anderson, 1990) p. 47.
8. Guatemala ratified Convention 156 on January 6, 1994.
9. Convention 29 came into force, May 1, 1932; Guatemala ratified it on June 13, 1989.
10. Convention No. 105 came into force January 1959; Guatemala ratified the convention on December 9, 1959.
11. See Susan S. Green, Silicon Valley's Women Workers: A Theoretical Analysis of Sex-Segregation in the Electronics Industry Labor Market, 273-331 in WOMEN, MEN, AND THE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR, eds. June Nash & Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly (SUNY, 1983). Green notes one important aspect of the new international division of labor: women are increasingly employed over men in industries undergoing rapid internationalization both in the Third World and in the United States. Id. at 274. The increasing employment of women is in turn related to a profit maximization strategy based on employing the cheapest labor "that is the most productive, exploitable and dispensable in order to maximize the opportunity for cutting costs without confronting the resistance of organized labour ... Women are invariably proved to be the source of the cheapest labour, regardless of the type of society we consider. Id. at 321 quoting Pearson and Elson 1978: 29.
12. See Patricia Zavella, The Politics of Race and Gender: Organizing Chicana Cannery Workers in Northern California 127-53 in CHICANA CRITICAL ISSUES: MUJERES ACTIVAS EN LETRAS Y CAMBIO SOCIAL (Third Woman Press). Zavella identifies the gendered division of labor in the family as a significant obstacle in organizing women workers. According to Zavella, "One of the major problems in the Sun Valley Cannery Workers Committee was the lack of participation by women. Of the original membership, only a few were women, and most of them left because of pressure from their husbands. Id. at 140. This is because "[t]here is a presumption that women workers are more difficult to organize than male workers because women have domestic obligations and men do not. Thus organizers must recognize the division of labor within families, guided by the ideology that women should take responsibility for housework and childcare, and that women's "place" should be in the home and does not involve the movement."
13. Ruth Gerber Blumrosen, REMEDIES FOR WAGE DISCRIMINATION, 20 U. Mich. J.L. Ref. 99 (1986) (developing evidence that the same factors that produce a segregated job were likely to produce a discriminatorily depressed wage rate); Carin Ann Clauss, COMPARABLE WORTH - THE THEORY, ITS LEGAL FOUNDATION, AND THE FEASIBILITY OF IMPLEMENTATION, 20 J. L. Ref. 1 (1986) (noting the wage gap associated with sex-segregated occupational structures).
14. See WOMEN WORKERS AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, ed. Kathryn Ward (ILR Press, 1990); WOMEN, MEN AND THE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR, eds. June Nash & Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly (SUNY 1983).
15. Susan S. Green, Silicon Valley's Women Workers: A Theoretical Analysis of Sex-Segregation in the Electronics Industry Labor Market at 317 in WOMEN, MEN, AND THE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR, eds. June Nash & Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly (SUNY, 1983).
16. Id. at 318, quoting Jackie West, Women, Sex and Class in Annete Kuhn & Ann Marie Wolpe, FEMINISM AND MATERIALISM (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978).
17. See Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981, preamble (expressly invoking the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1979 ¶14).
18. Id.
19. See Petitioner's Brief at 10 (quoting opinion of Guatemalan Constitutional Court, which declared: "En el matrimonio hay un papel para cada uno de los cónyuges, el que determina el Estado dentro de los valores tradicionales guatemaltecos y la diversidad de concepciones, costumbres, creencias nacionales en relación con el matrimonio."
20. For a comprehensive review of the many burdens imposed on women by the second-shift responsibilities which arise in the United States from the cultural and social expectations that women are primarily responsible for child care and domestic work see Karen Czapanskiy, VOLUNTEERS AND DRAFTEES: THE STRUGGLE FOR PARENTAL EQUALITY, 38 UCLA L. Rev. 1415 (1991) (noting the many psychological, physical, economic and social disabilities created for women by their "second shift" obligations).
21. This Article provides that "No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labor."
22. Article 2, ¶ 1 provides that "[f]or purposes of this Convention the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily."
23. Article 1 provides, in pertinent part, that "[e]ach Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention undertakes to suppress and not to make of any form of forced or compulsory labour --
(e) as a means of racial, social, national or religious discrimination.
24. See e.g. American Convention, Article 6, Para 2, 3; the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 Article 2.
25. Thus Article 2 ¶3(d) of the American Convention provides, in pertinent part, that "For purposes of this article, the following do not constitute forced or compulsory labor: ... d. work or service that forms part of normal civic obligation. Similarly, Article 2, ¶ 2 of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 provides, in pertinent part,: "Nevertheless, for purposes of this Convention, the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall not include --
(b) any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligations of the citizens of a fully self-governing country...
26. In a speech beofre the OAS, Cesar Gaviria, the Secretary General of the OAS listed the improvement of the "connection between the Inter-American system and the national systems" as one of the objectives for the OAS. See Cesar Cesar Gaviria, The Future of the Inter-American System for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, Address before the OAS (April 9, 1996). Improving this connection depends, in part, on securing state compliance with the constitutive norms of the Inter-American System, as established by the American Declaration and the American Convention.