History Remains: Latin America and its Multilateral Arrangements
“VI Cumbre de la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC)”, Gobierno de Guatemala, September 18, 2021 (public domain).
By Ethan D. Ayala
On September 18, 2021, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) came together for the 2021 CELAC summit in Mexico City. CELAC is comprised of thirty-three countries from the region and defines itself as an "intergovernmental mechanism of dialogue and political concertation."[1]
One of the most controversial proposals ahead of the summit came from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He suggested replacing the Organization of American States (OAS) for "a truly autonomous organization, not a lackey of anyone, but a mediator at the request and acceptance of the parties in conflict, in matters of human rights and democracy."[2] The OAS was created "to achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence," but has been accused throughout the years of imposing the interests of the United States to the detriment of Latin American countries.[3]
Less than two months later, the presidents of CELAC countries debated President Obrador's proposal, among many other topics, during the 2021 summit—the first time since 2017 that this group convened. The debate included some tense moments of verbal confrontation between countries with governments on opposite sides of the political spectrum.[4] In the end, no agreement was reached regarding the replacement or reformation of the OAS, and it was never formally added to the summit’s agenda. Nonetheless, that it was a topic brought up and discussed by most states proved it might be more relevant to the future multilateral agenda of the region than anyone initially thought.
Disappearing or modifying the leading hemispheric organization—one that has encompassed and constructed the rules of American coexistence for the last seventy-three years—is a provocative idea and entails an important set of political and historical arguments worth discussing.[5] Even if Latin American countries share common cultures, languages, and similar historical problems, we must not ignore the fundamental differences between them. The region's nations differ in their internal politics, their current governments, and their foreign policy. Having a forum where they come together to try and solve their problems matters a great deal, and it is noteworthy that some countries are not satisfied with the current state of affairs. Despite its troubled history and present problems, discontinuing the OAS is not a viable alternative because of its worth as a common forum for dialogue and cooperation. It is clear, however, that something must change. The most viable options are reforming the OAS's structure and authorities, strengthening CELAC to make it a stronger political forum for the region, or both.
The Current Multilateral Arrangement
CELAC was created in 2011 with the intention of becoming a genuinely Latin American forum by including every country south of the Río Bravo (known in the United States as the Rio Grande) until Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of South America. CELAC's main difference from the OAS is that it excludes the United States and Canada.
The OAS and CELAC are not, however, the only two international organizations (IOs) in the hemisphere. At the start of the twenty-first century, many IOs were created in Latin America in an attempt to get away from U.S. influence and focus on integration and cooperation in political terms rather than in economic ones. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA, created in 2004), the Pacific Alliance (created in 2011), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR, created in 2011), and CELAC itself are some examples of this.[6] Each IO has different objectives and their membership composition is influenced by the political affiliation of each government. In this context, the OAS and CELAC are the largest by membership, providing opportunities for dialogue and cooperation.
When Mexico, as the president pro tempore of CELAC, summoned all member states' top leaders to a meeting in Mexico City in September 2021, it brought together eighteen heads of state, two vice presidents, and twelve ministers of foreign affairs.[7] This attendance was difficult to achieve, as CELAC has lost some relevance because of political concerns. Right-wing governments wanted to exclude Venezuela, and Cuba and Nicaragua defended its membership. Mexico and Uruguay tried to mediate through diplomatic efforts.[8] Nevertheless, at the 2021 CELAC summit, these governments came together to talk about the region's future in the context of the pandemic.
Considering this preexisting political divide, the unexpected arrival of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, added significant tension, since many participating countries do not recognize the legitimacy of his government. Still, leaders managed to reach meaningful agreements for the region. Positive and concrete results included the unanimous approval of a "Regional Plan for Health Self-Sufficiency" presented by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, a regional fund to face climate change disasters, a call for fair access to COVID vaccines and International Monetary Fund credits, and the creation of a Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency.[9] This proved that achievements can be reached through multilateral arrangements. Nevertheless, the question lingered whether Latin American States present at the summit considered if CELAC could replace the OAS as the most relevant space for hemispheric dialogue, and if they would actively pursue this course of action.
Reasons for Eliminating the OAS
The OAS has a long and complicated history, which includes politically motivated uses of its mechanisms to pressure, oust, or replace governments and to justify the intervention of certain countries in the internal affairs of others. Its creation in 1948 as successor to the Pan American Union was marked by the beginning of the Cold War and the need to reaffirm collective security. The previous year, American countries had signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), commonly known as the Rio Treaty, which stated that an external attack on any of its signatory countries would be an attack on all of them. This concept was also present in the OAS Charter. Those treaties intended to build a common anti-communist front in the hemisphere and develop a regional mechanism to solve controversies away from the United Nations (UN) and its Security Council—where the Soviet Union had a permanent seat and veto power.[10] Article 52 of the UN Charter allowed states to maintain their own "regional arrangements."[11] In response, the OAS created provisions to settle disputes inside the region before referring them to the UN.[12]
The first time the OAS was used against one of its own members was in 1954, when the United States, in collaboration with Honduras, forced a coup against President Jacobo Árbenz. In addition to providing guns, planes, and money, creating panic, and allowing the plotters to use Honduras as a training base, they also isolated the Guatemalan government diplomatically by having the OAS "condemn the advance of communism in Guatemala."[13] The OAS decided to focus on the alleged communist infiltration instead of the U.S. overthrow of a democratically elected government. The OAS's reaction discredited Árbenz’s attempts at getting the UN Security Council to denounce the coup.[14] Ambassador Claude Heller, former Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OAS (1998-2001), stated: "Since 1954 the OAS became an intervention instrument against those governments whose reformist policies were perceived as a communist threat to the United States’ national security."[15] Similar political manipulation resulted in the exclusion of Cuba from the organization in 1962 and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 to avoid the reinstitution of Juan Bosch as President.[16] Even though these actions were in clear violation of the OAS Charter, a few days after its invasion, the United States manipulated the OAS into creating an "inter-American peace force" to legitimate its actions contrary to international law.[17]
This eventually led to a credibility crisis in the OAS, and the American countries began to form ad hoc mechanisms to deal with specific regional issues rather than present them to the organization. For instance, the Contadora Group was created in 1983 to deal with military conflicts in Central America, and the Cartagena Group emerged in 1984 to deal with regional economic problems.[18] The Falklands War ("Guerra de las Malvinas") seemed to be the end of the OAS, when interstate conflict broke out between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The United States sided with the United Kingdom instead of defending Argentina, turning the whole continental collective security apparatus in the TIAR and the OAS Charter into a dead letter.
However, with the end of the Cold War, the OAS regained some credibility. Five factors revitalized the organization. First, the end of the Cold War eliminated the fear that the United States would intervene in Latin American countries’ internal affairs, which made room for collective action towards common goals, like consolidating the various democratic transitions of the period. Second, the important of multilateral mechanisms increased globally, with peace processes being worked out in Central America, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. Third, Canada was incorporated into the OAS in 1990 and brought a clear agenda for democracy and human rights. Fourth, the disappearance of the "communist threat" led to rethinking about how the Americas understood hemispheric security as a concept. Finally, the success of the first two Summits of the Americas during the 1990s, where the OAS was in charge of following up on the agreements reached, demonstrated the organization's capabilities.[19]
Although these factors and the focus on democracy and human rights strengthened the organization, the OAS is still controversial today. In the past six years, many countries—particularly with left-wing governments—have openly criticized Secretary General Luis Almagro's leadership and partiality.[20] He is perceived as biased and promoting his own agenda by focusing almost exclusively on the Venezuelan crisis and ignoring other issues affecting the American countries.[21] The two most criticized actions during his mandate have been the accreditation of a permanent representative designated by Venezuela’s National Assembly as the country’s official delegate, thereby recognizing Juan Guaidó’s government over that of Maduro, and the OAS electoral mission's polemic report about Bolivia that triggered the events leading to the 2019 coup d’état.[22] Both actions were prejudicial towards leftist governments. As more left-leaning governments won elections in the region since 2018, support for Almagro diminished.[23]
Despite these issues, as COVID-19 was spreading to the region in 2020, the OAS voted to re-elect Almargo, ignoring the request of fourteen countries to delay the voting process due to the pandemic..[24] Almagro was re-elected with twenty-three votes in favor, ten against, and one absent, a dramatic change from his unanimous election in 2015.[25] With one-third of the member states rejecting Almagro, the OAS’ current ability to be a common political forum is limited. As has happened many times in the past, the OAS today cannot operate as a consensus seeker mechanism. This contributes to the argument that it has become obsolete as a political forum and opens the door to proposals for substantial institutional change.
Reasons for Maintaining the OAS
The historic and present-day arguments that the OAS does not work as it was intended do not imply that it has to disappear. The OAS, and the inter-American system more broadly, plays a vital role in democratization processes and human rights protection for the continent. After the Cold War, democracy promotion gained importance in the OAS. This is reflected in the 1990 creation of the Unit for the Promotion of Democracy, the commitment of Santiago to democracy and renovation of the Inter-American System, the "Representative Democracy" resolution of 1991, the 1992 inclusion of a reformed Article 9 in the Charter, the use of diplomatic "good offices" during the 1992 coup in Peru and the 1993 coup in Guatemala, and the 2001 adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.[26] All those measures helped to reinforce democracy protection in the continent.
The OAS has also built robust mechanisms to secure states’ compliance to their international obligations to human rights.[27] At its foundation in 1948, the organization adopted the "American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.," which is the basis of the American Convention on Human Rights, upon which the inter-American System of human rights stands. The protection and promotion of human rights materialized with institutions created during the Cold War, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1960, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), a jurisdictional body, in 1969.
Both the IACHR and IACtHR have had an increasingly important role in the region. The IACHR gained respect in the hemisphere by making recommendations and exhortations based on in loco ("in place") investigations, in spite of limited resources.[28] It also allows individuals and groups, to "request hearings, precautionary measures, the admission of individual petitions or the negotiation of friendly solutions," which strengthens its actions and gives it a quasi-jurisdictional role.[29]
The court, on the other hand, has advisory and contentious faculties. The first has been used to "clarify various issues of Inter-American international law… as well as issues of greater scope and relevance related to the issuance or application of national norms vis à vis the rules of American ius gentium or those applicable in countries of the region."[30] The IACtHR's work has influenced internal law of the American states.[31] The contentious faculty is expressed in judgments "on specific cases of human rights violations."[32] As states have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction over them, its importance has increased and it now directly impacts the lives of Latin Americans. As of October 2021, the Court has issued 430 judgments for contentious cases.[33]
This Inter-American System is one of the great multilateral achievements of the region and impacts how we understand human rights today. Even as the commission and court work independently from the secretary general, they rely on the OAS's structure and funds to perform their duties. The long road paved by these institutions is something the region's countries should reinforce and maintain.
An Open Discussion
Why should we be discussing the relevance of an organization like the OAS in the middle of a pandemic that has caused millions of deaths around the world and dragged the global economy into a crisis?[34] Partially, it is because Latin America is in a transformational political moment as more countries elect left-wing governments that do not feel represented by the OAS as it works today. OAS-facilitated dialogue is particularly essential to achieving regional goals on issues such as vaccines, natural disasters, migration, and drug trafficking when regional governments do not share international priorities nor political ideals. The OAS must address its biases against left-wing governments in order to make this cooperation possible.
Ultimately, eliminating the OAS as the primary forum to address transnational issues had a minimal prospect of materializing, and everyone at the CELAC Summit knew it. Nevertheless, discussing it increases the possibility of reforming the OAS or reinforcing CELAC. The ultimate goal is to get every Latin American nation at the table and gain diplomatic weight as a region. Countries with fundamental differences to the rest of the region, like Cuba or Venezuela, must be part of the solution to regional problems. A new strategy to engage these countries has better chances of succeeding since the current one used by the United States and the OAS has not worked out in the Venezuelan case, at least during the past few years. In the Cuban case, during the past few decades. With a secretary general with limited support and important elections ahead in multiple countries, the OAS faces a complicated landscape. A broad reform to limit the role of the secretary general and to reinforce areas dedicated to human rights might be a better way of ensuring that the OAS remains useful to countries regardless of their government’s ideology. CELAC, on the other hand, could be strengthened by having its own structure, so that its work and results do not only depend on the will and priorities of the current president pro tempore country. This will have obstacles of its own: consensus and funding. Reforming CELAC and reforming the OAS are not mutually exclusive; both strategies could be discussed and implemented in parallel.
In that broader context, all Latin American countries need a multilateral forum that can represent a neutral place for consensus-seeking, bridge-building, and creating joint proposals to address regional problems. There are times when the United States and Canada have to be part of the dialogue, and times when Latin American countries need to come together without external influences that, in the past, have been extremely dangerous for their sovereignty, political stability, and self-determination. In an age where interdependence is a fact and multilateralism is vital, the only possible way to find constructive common ground is ensuring every nation feels empowered to speak and operate as equals. The debate to have such a forum is no minor thing.
About the Author
Ethan D. Ayala holds a B.A. in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). He has worked as a Legislative Adviser at the Mexican Senate and currently works at the Mexican Ministry of Economy. All views expressed in this article are his own.
Note: Some parts of this article are based on the author’s undergraduate thesis, titled "Causes and evolution of coups d’État in Latin America: From the Cold War to present day."
Endnotes
1. Presidencia Pro Témpore (PPT) de México en la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC) 2021, “¿Qué es la CELAC?,” May 7, 2021, https://ppt-celac.sre.gob.mx/es/que-es-la-celac.
2. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “Discurso del presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador en el 238 Aniversario del Natalicio de Simón Bolívar, desde el Castillo de Chapultepec,” July 24, 2021, https://presidente.gob.mx/discurso-del-presidente-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-en-el-238-aniversario-del-natalicio-de-simon-bolivar-desde-el-castillo-de-chapultepec/.
3. IX International Conference of American States, Charter of the Organization of American States, 1948. Article 1, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20119/volume-119-I-1609-English.pdf.
4. The government of Paraguay, for instance, said it did not recognize the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, while the government of Uruguay denounced the human rights and democracy situation in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, who responded in similar terms to these accusations. See Karol Suarez, “Líderes latinoamericanos de la CELAC se reúnen en la Ciudad de México para abordar temas críticos,” CNN español, September 18, 2021, https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2021/09/18/lideres-latinoamericanos-se-reunen-en-la-ciudad-de-mexico-para-abordar-temas-criticos-trax/.
5. In this article, references such as “American” are intended to refer to the entire American Continent, or the Americas, and the different countries located in it, rather than to the citizens of the United States.
6. Natalia Saltalamacchia Ziccardi, “Regional Multilateralism in Latin America. UNASUR, ALBA and CELAC,” Routledge Handbook of Latin America in the World, ed. Jorge I. Domínguez and Ana Covarrubias (Nueva York: Routledge, 2015), 298-99 and 307-08.
7. Brazil withdrew from CELAC in 2020. Reuters Staff, “Brazil sits out leftist Latin American nations' body on anti-democracy fears," Reuters, January 16, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-diplomacy-celac-idUSKBN1ZF2U9; Forbes Staff, “La reunión de la Celac busca transformar la OEA y ahondar en lucha anticovid,” Forbes México, September 17th 2021, https://www.forbes.com.mx/la-reunion-de-la-celac-busca-transformar-la-oea-y-ahondar-en-lucha-anticovid/.
8. Eric Emmanuel Duarte Gamboa, “La CELAC en el nuevo escenario regional,” Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, February 6, 2019, https://revistafal.com/la-celac-en-el-nuevo-escenario-regional/.
9. Silvina Romano and Tamara Lajtman, “Cumbre CELAC 2021: renovada apuesta por la integración latinoamericana”, Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica, September 18 2021, https://www.celag.org/cumbre-celac-2021-renovada-apuesta-por-la-integracion-latinoamericana/#.
10. Stefan Rinke, América Latina y Estados Unidos. Una historia entre espacios desde la época colonial hasta hoy (Ciudad de México: El Colegio de México/Marcial Pons, 2016), 172-73.
11. Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshops. Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic (New York: Picador, 2021), 54.
12. IX International Conference of American States, Charter of the Organization of American States, 1948. Article 20 of the original Charter, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20119/volume-119-I-1609-English.pdf.
13. Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 64.
14. Gordon Connell-Smith, El Sistema Interamericano (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1971), 271-80 and 289.
15. Claude Heller, “México en la OEA: tesis y posiciones tradicionales,” in La OEA hacia el siglo XXI, ed. Instituto Matías Romero (Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1998), 10, https://revistadigital.sre.gob.mx/images/stories/numeros/n54/heller.pdf.
16. Left-wing politician democratically elected as President of the Dominican Republic in 1962, after the assassination of dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and later ousted by a coup in 1963.
17. Connell-Smith, El Sistema Interamericano, 214-216.
18. Olga Pellicer, “La OEA a los 50 años; ¿hacia su fortalecimiento?,” in La OEA hacia el siglo XXI, ed. Instituto Matías Romero (Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1998), 20, https://revistadigital.sre.gob.mx/images/stories/numeros/n54/pellicer.pdf.
19. Pellicer, “La OEA a los 50 años,” 20-22.
20. Despite him being the former Uruguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs during the left-wing presidency of José "Pepe" Mujica (2010-2015), he was expelled from his political party for suggesting an armed intervention in Venezuela; “OAS Head Almagro Expelled From His Party Due to Interventionism,” Telesur, December 15, 2018, https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/OAS-Head-Almagro-Expelled-From-His-Party-Due-to-Interventionism-20181215-0014.html. He has been publicly criticized by the governments of Mexico, Argentina, and Bolivia.
21. For a very critical editorial on Almagro's first term, read: COAH Editorial Board, "COHA Deeply Concerned over Re-election of Almagro as Secretary General of the OAS," Council on Hemispheric Affairs, March 27th, 2020, https://www.coha.org/coha-deeply-concerned-over-re-election-of-almagro-as-secretary-general-of-the-oas/.
22. The role of the OAS and its electoral observation mission in Bolivia during the 2019 presidential elections provoked a post-electoral conflict by publishing a report alleging irregularities committed by the government to reelect President Evo Morales. That report was later questioned by organizations like the Center for Economic and Policy Research, but the post-electoral crisis ended with a coup against Morales and several casualties during social protests. In the end, the accusation against the OAS is that they contributed to the conflict, instead of being a forum to avoid violence; Anatoly Kurmanaev and María Silvia Trigo, “A Bitter Election. Accusations of Fraud. And Now Second Thoughts,” New York Times, June 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/world/americas/bolivia-election-evo-morales.html?emci=0513448a-2aa9-ea11-9b05-00155d039e74&emdi=2173dde8-2ba9-ea11-9b05-00155d039e74&ceid=4622383.
23. Mexico with Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018), Argentina with Alberto Fernández (2019), Bolivia with Luis Arce Catacora (2020), and Peru with Pedro Castillo (2021).
24. The in-person election violated a Washington, D.C. ordinance limiting the number of people in gatherings. Jacqueline Charles, “Caribbean leaders seek postponement of OAS vote amid the coronavirus pandemic," Miami Herald, March 19, 2020, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241336126.html.
25. “OAS General Assembly Re-elects Luis Almagro as Secretary General and Nestor Mendez as Assistant Secretary General," Press Releases, Organization of American States, March 20, 2020, https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-026/20.
26. Organization of American States, “Unit for the Promotion of Democracy”, General Assembly AG/RES. 1063 (XX-O/90) (Asunción, 1990). The Unit transformed into the Secretariat for Political Affairs in 2006 and finally into the Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy in 2015; Natalia Saltalamacchia and María José Urzúa, Los derechos humanos y la democracia en el Sistema Interamericano (Mexico: Instituto Nacional Electoral, Colección Cuadernos de Divulgación de la Cultura Democrática No. 37, 2016), 35, https://www.ine.mx/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CDCD-37.pdf.; Organization of American States, “Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System," General Assembly (Santiago, 1991); Organization of American States, “Representative Democracy," General Assembly AG/RES. 1080 (XXI-O/91) (Santiago, 1991); The new article 9 of the Charter states that if a democratically elected government is overthrown (by a coup), said country can be suspended from every OAS organism by the vote of two-thirds of member States for as long as it takes to reinstate representative democracy. IX International Conference of American States, Charter of the Organization of American States, article 9; the good offices of the OAS in the coups of 1992 and 1993 are cited by Pellicer, “La OEA a los 50 años”, 26-28; Organization of American States, “Inter-American Democratic Charter," General Assembly AG/RES. 1 (XXVIII-E/01) (Lima, 2001).
27. Saltalamacchia and Urzúa, Los derechos humanos y la democracia en el Sistema Interamericano, 15.
28. Pellicer, “La OEA a los 50 años,” 34.
29. Saltalamacchia and Urzúa, Los derechos humanos y la democracia en el Sistema Interamericano, 27.
30. Sergio García Ramírez, “La jurisdicción interamericana sobre derechos humanos; actualidad y perspectivas”, in La OEA hacia el siglo XXI, ed. Instituto Matías Romero (Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1998), 127, https://revistadigital.sre.gob.mx/images/stories/numeros/n54/garciar.pdf.
31. Ibid., 127-28,
32. Saltalamacchia and Urzúa, Los derechos humanos y la democracia en el Sistema Interamericano, 30.
33. The complete list of cases and rulings is available at https://www.corteidh.or.cr/casos_sentencias.cfm?lang=en.
34. Our World in Data, “Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths,” October 3, 2021, Global Change Data Lab in collaboration with the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths.