American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man

The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, also known as the Bogota Declaration, was the world's first international human rights instrument of a general nature, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by less than a year.
Although a declaration is not, strictly speaking, a legally binding treaty, the jurisprudence of both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has established that the Declaration gives rise to binding international obligations for OAS member states. The Declaration has been largely superseded in practice by the more detailed provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights ; it continues to be applied, however, to states that have not ratified the Convention, such as Cuba, the United States, and Canada.

History

The Declaration was adopted by the nations of the Americas at the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogotá, Colombia, on 2 May 1948. The conference and declaration was led and designed chiefly by United States public servants. The same conference adopted the Charter of the Organization of American States and thereby created the OAS.

Contents

Chapter One of the Declaration sets forth a catalogue of civil and political rights to be enjoyed by the citizens of the signatory nations, together with additional economic, social, and cultural rights due to them. As a corollary, its second chapter contains a list of corresponding duties. As explained in the preamble: