Susan Smith, Staff Reporter
CARICOM NATIONS should come fully on board with the Inter-American System says Dr. Clare Roberts, president of the Secretariat to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
He said it was still a major challenge for Caribbean nations and their involvement with human rights. Of the 1,329 complaints alleging human rights violations received by the IACHR in 2004 from its Member States, 21 came from CARICOM States.
Dr. Roberts was addressing ambassadors and representatives from the Caribbean member states of the Organisation of American States (OAS), at a CARICOM breakfast meeting with the IACHR recently at the IACHR Secretariat in Washington D.C.
PURPOSE OF THE BREAKFAST
The purpose of the breakfast was to discuss with CARICOM Representatives, and the IACHR officials, ways in which they could bridge the gap between the IACHR and CARICOM States. Caribbean States make up a little more than 40 per cent of the OAS.
"The question most frequently asked is, 'where are the Caribbean representatives? Where is the rest of the Caribbean?'" Dr. Roberts said.
"The first thing the Caribbean countries can do is to ratify and accept the convention of the Court," he continued.
Dr. Roberts emphasised that subscribing to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights would not attract any additional administrative costs or bureaucratic set up for the governments.
"It doesn't cost us any more to take the full advantage of this system," he said.
SHARE BEST PRACTICES
He explained that full involvement in the system would enable CARICOM member states to have the right to have a Caribbean person appointed in the Inter-American Court and ensure that Caribbean persons can access this Court.
Moreover, with the IACHR's new focus to also protect and promote economic, social and cultural interests in the hemisphere, Dr. Roberts said the Caribbean should get involved and share best practices.
To date, while six of the 14 Caribbean member states of the OAS have agreed to be legally bound to the American Convention, only three Caribbean States are actually legally bound to the ruling of its Court. These States are Barbados, Haiti and Suriname.
The secretariat president also highlighted criminality and citizens' security as two serious problems in the region which must be tackled.
The IACHR is an independent organ of the OAS, created in 1959 to monitor, to promote and protect human rights in the Americas.
