7. Urges the countries of Central America to take all necessary steps to enable violence against women to be combated effectively; calls for the measures taken to ensure full respect for human rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Declaration of Human Rights and Duties, e.g. by ensuring the free services of a lawyer for the women victims and their relatives; calls on Mexico's Federal Government to continue the firm action undertaken to this end by successive administrations;

12. Calls on the Commission, in the context of the agreements in force and those under negotiation, to promote the inclusion of a reciprocal obligation designed to create mechanisms for implementing the human-rights and democracy clause, whose formulation should be based on the obligations stemming from the international pacts signed by the Member States, Mexico and the countries of Central America, with particular reference to respect for women's rights and gender equality as stated in the CEDAW, the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW, and the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man;

Any person or group of persons or nongovernmental entity legally recognized in one or more of the member states of the OAS may submit petitions to the Commission, on their own behalf or on behalf of third persons, concerning alleged violations of a human right recognized in, as the case may be, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Additional Protocol in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Protocol to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the Inter-American ...[+++] Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, and/or the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women.

With regard to each implication or direct assertion in the Commission’s report that the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man itself accords rights or imposes duties, some of which the United States has supposedly violated, the United States reminds the Commission that the Declaration is no more than a recommendation to the American States.

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): (a) no, Canada has not made a declaration recognizing the competence of the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, as provided for in article 14 of the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, CERD; (b) see response to question (a) above; (c) persons alleging discrimination in Canada currently have two other international complaints mechanisms available to them: (1) as a state party to the international covenant on civil and political rights, CCPR, and its first optional protocol, Canada recognizes the comp ...[+++]laint mechanism established thereunder and administered by the human rights committee (2) as a member of the Organisation of American States, OAS, Canada is also subject to the American declaration on the rights and duties of man declaration, and to the individual complaint mechanism before the commission regarding the declaration.

In my presentation, I go through the inter-American system and highlight the fact that it is a system based on two documents, the American Declaration on Rights and Duties of Man of 1948 and the American Convention on Human Rights of 1969.