CHILE SIGNS ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE AMERICAN
CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

San José, Costa Rica.- Today, in the framework of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Government of Chile signed the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, or the "Protocol of San Salvador.

At the ceremony, OAS Secretary General César Gaviria noted that the treaty "is one of the basic instruments on which our Hemisphere’s human rights system rests," and one of the few instruments dealing with second generation rights. "It is therefore very important that those rights be reaffirmed, developed, advanced, and protected," he added.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Chile, Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz, said his country had made major contributions to furthering the inter-American human rights system, stressing that a platform for dialogue was recently established in Chile that expressly acknowledged past mass human rights violations and committed to preventing such violations from ever reoccurring.

The Chilean diplomat also highlighted the abolition of the death penalty and the adoption of a new law on the media that eliminates all obstacles to freedom of expression. He said that these were "very important advances in the area of human rights and that the signature of the Protocol was another fundamental step for second generation rights."

The Additional Protocol was adopted in San Salvador in November 1988 and entered into force in 1999. To date, it has been ratified by 12 member states: Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Uruguay.

The Protocol contains a broad range of additional provisions regarding rights such as the right to work, social security, health, a healthy environment, food, education, and the benefits of culture, as well as the rights of children, the elderly, and the handicapped, to be protected by society.

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