Michigan Law Review Volume 65 Issue 6 1967 Human Rights and Non-Intervention in the Inter-American System José A. Cabranes Columbia University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation José A. Cabranes, Human Rights and Non-Intervention in the Inter-American System, 65 MICH. L. REV. 1147 (1967). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol65/iss6/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. HUMAN RIGHTS AND NON-INTERVENTION IN THE INTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM* Jose A. Cabranes** HE promotion and protection of human rights is a recent and T significant innovation in the inter-American system. For more than a decade after its founding, the Organization of American States (OAS) exhibited no particular inclination to undertake a pro gram to provide international protection for fundamental freedoms within member states. The proclamation in 1948 of the highly vaunted American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man1 and the frequent invocation of "human rights," "universal moral ity," and "the rights of man" in resolutions and international instru ments produced by the regional organization of the American re publics amounted to little more than well-intentioned, but quite fanciful, rhetoric. The long silence of the inter-American system is remarkable when contrasted with the continuing efforts of the United Nations to elaborate an International Bill of Rights and the significant ac complishments of the Council of Europe in implementing on a re gional basis the principal values enunciated in the Universal Decla ration of Human Rights.