MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela breaks three Mercosur human rights on human rights on abandoning IACHR

The IACHR holds sessions at the OAS building in Washington

By Juan Francisco Alonso - El Universal - Venezuela is not only a full member of the bloc since July 2012, but it also holds the pro-tempore presidency. The entry into force of Venezuela's denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights, which implies its withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court), breaches at least three regulations of Mercosur regional trade bloc.

Venezuela is not only a full member of the bloc since July 2012, but it also holds the pro-tempore presidency.

The Protocol of Asunción on the Commitment with the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights of Mercosur, adopted in 2005, is the first instrument the Venezuelan Government disregards by withdrawing from the IACHR Court.

On that protocol, full Mercosur members (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay); and associate members Chile and Bolivia reasserted their “commitment to the principles and regulations of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the American Convention on Human Rights, and other instruments.”

Even though Venezuela has not signed such document, when it became a full member of Mercosur, Venezuela automatically endorsed this protocol and other regulations adopted by the bloc.

The Cooperation Agreement for the Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents among the members of Mercosur, also known as decision 25/08, which Venezuela did sign, would also be breached by Venezuela, as it is committed to respect the American Convention on Human Rights.

The third Mercosur agreement Venezuela does not comply with by leaving the IACHR Court is the resolution signed in 2005 by Mercosur High-Level Authorities on Human Rights, in which they agreed to promote the enforcement of sentences and recommendations issued by the IACHR and the IACHR Court.

On that document, Mercosur Member States stressed that the enforcement of such decisions “was one of the most important mechanisms to strengthen the rule of law in the region.”