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Recommendations on Access to Information

The OAS Department of International Law has played an active role in the advancement of the access to information and the legislation that supports this right. The most recent development in this sense is the organization of the Joint Document Recommendations on Access to Information, a study made pursuant to the operative paragraphs 8.a and 13.a of resolution AG/RES. 2288 and in compliance with the decisions made by the member states in the meetings of the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs of the Permanent Council, which provides detailed information on the right to access to information, as well as policy and legislative recommendations.

The study was completed with the collaboration of the Department of International Law, the Department of State Modernization and Governability, the Inter-American Juridical Committee, the Special Rapporteurship on Freedom of Expression, and the Trust of the Americas, with the representation of the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs and the participation of Civil Society Organizations.

The study describes the background procedure of the General Assembly and the Commission for Political and Juridical Affairs mandates calling for the completion of the study. It also discusses antecedents that establish access to information as a human right under international instruments and applicable jurisprudence and presents access to information as a democratic right of fundamental importance for good governance of states. The links to the right provide summaries of these sections of the study as well as links to some fundamental sources on which it is based.

The study then provides policy and legislative recommendations for the promotion of effective compliance with the right of Access to Information. The first type offers several policy recommendations for the states and the OAS with a view to establishing the processes, initiatives and systems an access to information. The second type provides legislative recommendations needed to guarantee the right of access to information, as well as several legislative recommendations to support the states, the OAS, and other international organizations in creating comprehensive and effective legal frameworks for access to information. The links to the right provide summaries of both types of recommendations as well as links to some fundamental sources on which they were based.

The document ends with brief reflections on the importance of implementing the policy and legislative recommendations and possible next steps in this process.