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Abstract
Recent years have brought about a strengthening of inter‐American co‐operation in the areas of both human rights and democracy. Up to now, however, little attention has been devoted to the manner by which these two components of the inter‐American system are connected. The central argument of our article is that the concept of a citizenship regime provides an essential vehicle for bridging this gap. This notion makes it possible to recognise hemispheric changes regarding human rights and democracy as two sides of the same dynamic: the building of a more integrated inter‐American community. Anchored in a historical approach, the first part of the article explains how the OAS has been able to transform many of the features within the state–citizen relationship throughout the Americas. The second part goes on to demonstrate how the consolidation of the inter‐American citizenship regime remains fragile and incomplete, confronted by major challenges of both a domestic and an international nature. What we are seeing is a thin form of citizenship but one that helps reshape our understanding of the region.
Notes
Andrew F Cooper is in the Department of Political Science, Hagey Hall Rm 305, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1. Email: [email protected]. Jean‐Philippe Thérien is in the Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128 succursale Centre‐ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada. Email: jean‐[email protected].
Peter Hakim, ‘The uneasy Americas’, Foreign Affairs, 80 (2), 2001, p 47.
This formula is, for example, used in the Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter‐American System. See Organization of American States, ‘The Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter‐American System’, in Viron P Vaky & Heraldo Muñoz (eds), The Future of the Organization of American States, New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1993, p 104.
For a sample of the voluminous literature on citizenship, see TH Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development, New York: Doubleday, 1964; Bryan D Turner (ed), Citizenship and Social Theory, London: Sage, 1993; Martin Bulmer & Anthony M Rees (eds), Citizenship Today: The Contemporary Relevance of TH Marshall, London: UCL Press, 1996; and Ronnie D Lipschutz, ‘Members only? Citizenship and civic virtue in a time of globalization’, International Politics, 36 (2), 1999, pp 203–233.
Will Kymlicka & Wayne Norman, ‘Return of the citizen: a survey of recent work on citizenship theory’, in Ronald Beiner (ed), Theorizing Citizenship, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995, pp 283–322.
For a recent review of the issues of this debate, see Emma Jones & John Gaventa, Concepts of Citizenship: A Review, Brighton: IDS Development Bibliography, No 19, 2002.
Jane Jenson & Martin Papillon, ‘The changing boundaries of citizenship: a review and a research agenda’, in Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD), Modernizing Governance: A Preliminary Exploration, Ottawa: CCMD, 2000, p 13.
See Ibid, pp 5–13; and Jane Jenson & Susan D Phillips, ‘Regime shift: new citizenship practices in Canada’, International Journal of Canadian Studies, 14, 1996, pp 111–135.
Consuelo Cruz, ‘The new Latin American citizen: First World models, Third Wave products’, in Carol Wise & Riordan Roett (eds), Post‐Stabilization Politics in Latin America: Competition, Transition, Collapse, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003, pp 96–97.
See Jürgen Habermas, ‘Citizenship and national identity: some reflections on the future of Europe’, in Beiner, Theorizing Citizenship, p 279; and David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995, p 233.
On the development of European citizenship, see, for example, Elizabeth Meehan, Citizenship and the European Community, London: Sage, 1993; and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, La citoyenneté européenne, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1997.
See for example Held, Democracy and the Global Order, p 233; and Lipschutz, ‘Members only?’, p 204.
See Jean‐Philippe Thérien, Patrick Hénault & Myriam Roberge, ‘Le régime interaméricain de citoyenneté: acquis et défis’, Études internationales, 33 (3), 2002, pp 421–446.
David P Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p 131.
For a systematic analysis of the inter‐American system of human rights, see Thomas Buergenthal & Dinah Shelton, Protecting Human Rights in the Americas: Cases and Materials, Kehl: NP Engel, 1995; Scott Davidson, The Inter‐American Human Rights System, Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1997; and David J Harris & Stephen Livingston, The Inter‐American System of Human Rights, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights and Inter‐American Court of Human Rights, Basic Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter‐American System, Washington, DC: OAS, 2003, p 56.
Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989, p 216.
Tom Farer, ‘The rise of the Inter‐American Human Rights Regime: no longer a unicorn, not yet an ox’, Human Rights Quarterly, 19 (3), 1997, p 512.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights and Inter‐American Court of Human Rights, Basic Documents, p 56.
See Cecilia Medina, ‘The Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights: reflections on a joint venture’, Human Rights Quarterly, 12 (4), 1990, p 445; Davidson, The Inter‐American Human Rights System, pp 117–118; and Carol Hilling, ‘Le statut de la Déclaration Américaine des droits et des devoirs de l'Homme, reflet de l'évolution du système interaméricain de protection des droits de la personne’, Revue québécoise de droit international, 11 (1), 1998, p 75.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, Annual Report of the Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights 2002, ch 1, available at www.cidh.org/annualrep/2002eng/chap.1.htm. See also Organization of American States and Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights, Washington, DC: OAS, 2002.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, Annual Report of the Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights 2002, ch 3, available at www.cidh.org/annualrep/2002eng/chap.3.htm.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, ‘The Executive Secretariat creates unit for human rights defenders’, press release, Washington, DC, 7 December 2001.
Michael Shifter & Sean Neill, Implementing the Summit of the Americas: Guaranteeing Democracy and Human Rights, Coral Gables, FL: North–South Center Press, 1996, p 7.
For one analysis of this event, see Sidney Weintraub, ‘The Monterrey Hemispheric Summit’, Issues in International Political Economy, 49, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2004.
Margaret E Keck & Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp 116–117.
Organization of American States, Charter of the Organization of American States, Washington, DC: OAS, 1989, art 3 (d).
Ibid, Preamble.
See Organization of American States, ‘The Santiago Commitment to Democracy’, p 106.
The Protocol of Washington, adopted by the 16th Special Session of the OAS General Assembly on 14 December 1992.
Summit of the Americas, ‘Declaration of Principles: Partnership for Development and Prosperity: Democracy, Free Trade and Sustainable Development in the Americas’, in Robin Rosenberg & Steve Stein (eds), Advancing the Miami Process: Civil Society and the Summit of the Americas, Coral Gables: North–South Center Press, 1995, p 9.
See Andrew F Cooper, ‘The Quebec City “Democracy Summit” ’, Washington Quarterly, 24 (2), 2001, pp 159–171.
The text of the democratic clause is available at www.summit‐americas.org.
The text of the Inter‐American Democratic Charter is available at www.upd.oas.org/documents/basic/democratic%20charter.htm. See also Andrew F Cooper, ‘The making of the Inter‐American Democratic Charter: a case of complex multilateralism’, International Studies Perspectives, 5 (1), 2004, pp 92–113.
See Richard E Feinberg & Robin L Rosenberg, ‘The power of summitry and collective defense of democracy’, Summits of the Americas Bulletin, 1 (1), 2001, p 2; Jaime Aparicio Otero, ‘The Summits of the Americas process and the Inter‐American Democratic Charter’, Summits of the Americas Bulletin, 1 (1), 2001, pp 1–2; and Enrique Lagos & Timothy D Rudy, ‘The Third Summit of the Americas and the Thirty‐first Session of the OAS General Assembly’, American Journal of International Law, 96 (1), 2002, pp 173–181.
Tom Farer, ‘Collectively defending democracy in a world of sovereign states: the Western Hemisphere's prospect’, Human Rights Quarterly, 15 (4), 1993, p 717.
Jennifer Burrell & Michael Shifter, ‘Estados Unidos, la OEA y la promoción de la democracia en las Américas’, in Arlene B Tickner (ed), Sistema interamericano y democracia: antecedentes históricos y tendencias futuras, Bogotá: Centro de Estudios Internacionales–Ediciones Uniandes–Organización de Estados Americanos, 2000, pp 41–46; and Guy Gosselin & Jean‐Philippe Thérien, ‘The Organization of American States and hemispheric regionalism’, in Gordon Mace & Louis Bélanger (eds), The Americas in Transition: The Contours of Regionalism, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999, p 182.
Dexter S Boniface, ‘Is there a democratic norm in the Americas? An analysis of the Organization of American States’, Global Governance, 8 (3), 2002, p 376.
Moises Naim, ‘Democracy dictates Latin America's future’, Financial Times, 26 April 2002.
Organization of American States, ‘Situation in Venezuela’, OEA/Ser.G CP/RES 811 91315/02, 13 April 2002.
Peter Hakim, ‘Democracy, and US credibility’, New York Times, 21 April 2002; and Michael Shifter, ‘Democracy in Venezuela, unsettling as ever’, Washington Post, 21 April 2002.
Andrew F Cooper & Thomas Legler, ‘The OAS democratic solidarity paradigm: questions of collective and national leadership’, Latin American Politics and Society, 43 (1), 2001, p 107.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights and Inter‐American Court of Human Rights, Basic Documents, p 56.
Organization of American States, Dialogue on the Inter‐American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Report of the Committee on Judicial and Political Affairs, Washington, DC: OAS, 2000. See also The Senate of Canada, Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, Enhancing Canada's Role in the OAS: Canadian Adherence to the American Convention on Human Rights, Ottawa: The Senate of Canada, May 2003.
Colin Terrence Granderson, ‘Anniversary of the Democratic Charter: a Caribbean perspective’, address by the Assistant‐Secretary General, Foreign and Community Relations, Caricom Secretariat, at the Conference on ‘Reflections on the First Anniversary of the Inter‐American Democratic Charter’, OAS, Washington, DC, 16 September 2002.
See Gosselin & Thérien, ‘The Organization of American States and hemispheric regionalism’, p 190; and Liisa North, Yasmine Shamsie & George Wright, A Report on Reforming the Organization of American States to Support Democratization in the Hemisphere: A Canadian Perspective, Toronto: Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, 1995, p 42.
On these different questions see Domingo E Acevedo & Claudio Grossman, ‘The Organization of American States and the protection of democracy’, in Tom Farer (ed), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, pp 142–145; Sauveur‐Pierre Étienne, Haïti: misère de la démocratie, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999, pp 198–200; and Andrew F Cooper & Thomas Legler, ‘The OAS in Peru: a model for the future?’, Journal of Democracy, 12 (4), 2001, p 126.
Acevedo & Grossman, ‘The Organization of American States and the protection of democracy’, p 148.
Office of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, ‘Financing the Inter‐American Human Rights System’, in Inter‐American Court of Human Rights, El Sistema Interamericano de Protección de los Derechos Humanos en el Umbral del Siglo XXI. Informe: Bases para un proyecto de protocolo a la Convención americana sobre derechos humanos, para fortalecer su mecanismo de protección, San José: Inter‐American Court of Human Rights, 2001, p 578.
Ibid, p 588.
Ibid, p 578.
Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, ‘Presentation of the Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights at the First Meeting of the ad hoc Working Group for Human Rights’, Washington, DC, OAS, 2 October 2000, p 1; and Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights, Annual Report of the Inter‐American Commission on Human Rights 2000, ch 1, available at www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/2000/eng/chap.1.htm.
See Claudio Grossman, ‘El fortalecimiento de la democracia: el sistema interamericano de derechos humanos’, Foreign Affairs en español, 1 (3), 2001, available at www.foreignaffairs‐esp.org; and Douglass Cassel, ‘Peru withdraws from the Court: will the Inter‐American Human Rights System meet the challenge?’, Human Rights Law Journal, 20 (4–6), 1999, p 168.
P Hakim, ‘The uneasy Americas’, p 53.
Robert A Pastor, ‘A community of democracies in the Americas: from phrase to reality’, paper presented at the conference on ‘Inter‐American Co‐operation Beyond Free Trade’, Quebec City, 18 April 2001, p 4.
See, for example, Centre d'étude sur le droit international et la mondialisation, Rapport du séminaire ‘Comprendre la Charte démocratique interaméricaine’, Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal, 21 March 2002; and Jennifer McCoy, ‘Comments on the Inter‐American Democratic Charter’, Summits of the Americas Bulletin, 1 (1), 2001, p 3.
See André C Drainville, ‘Quebec City 2001 and the making of transnational subjects’, in Leo Panitch & Colin Leys (eds), The Socialist Register 2002: A World of Contradictions, London: Merlin Press, 2001, pp 15–42.
Hemispheric Social Alliance, Hemispheric Social Alliance Statement on the FTAA, Quebec City, 19 April 2001.
See César Gaviria, Challenges for a New Future 1999–2004, Washington, DC: OAS, 1999, p 10.
See Latinobarometro, Informe de Prensa: Encuesta Latinobarometro 2002, available at www.latinobarometro.org.
The existence of an inter‐American regime of human rights is articulated, for example, by Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations, pp 128–132; Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, pp 72–75; and Farer, ‘The rise of the Inter‐American Human Rights Regime’. Discussions of the notion of an inter‐American democracy regime can be found in Richard J Bloomfield, ‘Making the Western Hemisphere safe for democracy? The OAS defense‐of‐democracy regime’, Washington Quarterly, 17 (2), 1994, pp 157–169; Heraldo Muñoz, ‘Toward a regime for advancing democracy in the Americas’, in Jorge I Domínguez (ed), The Future of Inter‐American Relations, New York: Routledge, 2000, pp 287–299; and Rubén M Perina, ‘El régimen democrático interamericano: el papel de la OEA’, in Tickner, Sistema interamericano y democracia, pp 311–376.
On the notion of ‘nesting’, see Vinod K Aggarwal, Liberal Protectionism: The International Politics of Organized Textile Trade, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.
Former President Cardoso of Brazil has urged that ‘we must…insist that progressive governance expand beyond the domestic scene’. See Fernando Henrique Cardoso, ‘An age of citizenship’, Foreign Policy, 119, 2000, pp 40–42.
Laura Macdonald, ‘Citizenship, participation and the public sphere in the Americas’, in Rights & Democracy, Report of the Symposium on ‘Hemispheric Integration and Democracy in the Americas: Citizenship, Participation, Accountability’, Montreal: Rights & Democracy, 2000, p 56.
Andrew Linklater, ‘Citizenship and sovereignty in the post‐Westphalian European state’, in Daniele Archibugi, David Held & Martin Köhler (eds), Re‐Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998, p 130.