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Secretary General Insulza: Democracy, Migration, Crime, and Human Rights, the Great Hemispheric Issues

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said today during the XV Annual CAF Conference being held in Washington, DC, that there are issues of hemispheric scope such as migration, organized crime, and human rights that the OAS can face with greater breadth and depth than any other institution, while he recognized that there are other tasks that can be developed jointly with sub-regional forums.

Insulza referred to the importance of the Inter-American Democratic Charter as an instrument that strengthens democratic institutions in the region and recalled that “there is not a single piece of American international law that is not deposited at the OAS and that does not respond to the Organization of American States; the Inter-American Democratic Charter is the OAS’s, as well as the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights, the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and the Convention for the Defense of Women’s Rights.” He underlined, nevertheless, that he believes “in regional organizations such as Unasur, the Andean Community, and Mercosur,” and held that issues such as electoral observation, crises response, and human rights can be addressed also by other organizations. “I am in favor of that,” he said.

On Latin American integration, Secretary General Insulza clarified that “the OAS is not a mechanism for integration,” and identified the two biggest problems of the region in this context: “the absolute inability to forge supranational organizations for integration, a goal that has not yet been reached by any of the sub-regional organizations”; and the need to recognize that there is great inequality among the countries of Latin America. “Therefore, there must be a willingness on the part of the bigger and richer countries to compensate in some way the process of integration, as Germany and France did with the European Union,” he added.

Regarding the process of integrated being led by Unasur, Insulza indicated that “it is good to begin with South America, but at some point we have to ask ourselves if our objective of hemispheric integration is still relevant,” since, in his own words, this is “a gigantic aspiration.”

The functions and limitations of the OAS and Unasur were the central issues of the discussion during the closing session of the CAF event. Titled, “Changing Dynamics of Hemispheric Relations,” at the session Secretary General Insulza was accompanied by the Secretary General of Unasur, María Emma Mejía, in a dialogue moderated by the CNN en español journalist Patricia Janiot.

In the context of the event, Secretary General Insulza paid homage to the recently deceased Chilean former senator and foreign minister Gabriel Valdés, recalling his political legacy and his contribution to Chilean democracy.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-824/11