Climate Change: Globalization of Environment Propaganda

Excerpt from Yale Law article

That same year, the “Unit for the Promotion of Democracy”[9] was established in the OAS General Secretariat, to oversee the hemispheric Organization’s new responsibilities. The Unit was charged with developing medium and long-term policies on the promotion and consolidation of democratic institutions. In 1991, the Declaration of Santiago[10] (the “Santiago Commitment to Democracy”) renewed support for democracy and laid the groundwork for a major agreement among the countries to address the protection of democratic rule: Resolution 1080, “Representative Democracy,”[11] which for the first time incorporated sanction mechanisms for cases of abrupt or irregular interruption of the democratic institutional political process. This was complemented by the Protocol of Washington of 1992[12] that amended the OAS Charter to allow collective action to oust a country from the OAS if its government is toppled by force.

These changes amounted to a clear demonstration of the common will of the countries of the Americas to promote democracy and, if need be, act collectively to restore it. Juridically and politically, a second exception to the principle of non-intervention was being consolidated, in the name of the defense of democracy.

It is worth underscoring some of the factors that underlie this change of tack. First there was the “proven effect” of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, whose efforts for more than a decade to defend human rights in the region had reliably demonstrated that international collective action can indeed have an impact that is, moreover, positive.

Second, an important change in the political equation was the entry of Canada into the OAS in 1990, a country with a longstanding democratic tradition, which brought to the OAS a new level of determination to strengthen collective action on democratic issues.

Third, at that stage, there were a number of crises that put the recently espoused principles and commitments to the test. The regional Organization was asked to take a stand, precisely on the basis of the new agreements.

It was then that the OAS did indeed take a stand, actively intervening in instances in which democratic processes were interrupted in Haiti (1991), Peru (1992), Guatemala (1993), and Paraguay (1996). In each of those instances the mechanisms envisaged in the above mentioned General Assembly Resolution 1080 were applied.

In all of these crises, the OAS played a major role, exerting real influence in the hemi­sphere, specifically in the so-called “democratization wave of the region,” but, as in all processes in international organizations, there have been setbacks. Those significant acts of collective defense of democracy revealed certain lacunae and, above all, demon­strated that the collective commitments were not yet enough. What happened in Peru in the mid-1990s was especially revealing. Shortly before, in 1992, the Legislature and the Judiciary had been declared “dissolved” by the Executive, triggering a serious political crisis. The OAS intervened in a process that culminated, one year later, in the convocation of elections for a Constituent Assembly, which approved a new Constitution, thus allowing President Fujimori to be re-elected for the first time. However, in 2000, the President sought a second re-election through an interpretation of the Constitution that was rejected by a majority within Peru and abroad. Elections took place and were ob­served by the OAS, whose electoral observation mis­sion declared that they had not been conducted accord­ing to international standards. The OAS intervened again to promote national dialogue.