Background

Over the past several years the OAS has contributed extensive effort towards the creation of a declaration on Access to Public Information.

The right of access to information was introduced in the Declaration and Plan of Action of the Quebec Summit of the Américas (2001) and strongly reconfirmed in the Declaration of the Nuevo Leon Summit of the Americas (2004).

Under General Assembly Resolution AG/Res. 1932 (XXXIII-0/03), AG/Res. 2057 (XXXIV-0/04) , AG/Res. 2121 (XXXV-O/05) and AG/Res. 2418 (XXXVIII-O/08) access to information was placed on the agenda of the Committee of Political and Juridical affairs, affirming the relevance and importance of the subject.

Pursuant to the aforementioned General Assembly Resolutions, and the Plan of Action and Declarations from the Quebec and Nuevo Leon Summits of the Americas, General Assembly Resolution AG/RES. 2288 (XXXVII-O/07) was adopted on June 5, 2007, in Panama City, Panama.

Among the mandates of this resolution, is the exclusive mandate stemming from operative paragraph 8(a) instructing the Department of International Law to prepare a study with recommendations on access to information, and operative paragraph 13 (a), instructing the CAJP to prepare a document on best practices and the development of common approaches or guidelines for increasing access to information. The substantial technical overlap between OP 8 (a) and OP 13 (a) merited combining the two mandates into one, and the creation of a working group consisting of the actors mentioned in 13 (a) with the Department of International Law serving as the technical area in charge of coordinating the effort.

The result of the efforts of the Working Group is a study providing detailed information on the right to access to information, as well as policy and legislative recommendations.