Mr. Martín Gómez Bustillo
Interim Representative of Argentina to the Organization of American States 

Mr. Raul Salazar Cosio
Interim Representative of Peru to the Organisation of American States 

His Excellency, Luís Alfonso Hoyos Aristizabal
Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Colombia to the Organisation of American States 

His Excellency, Ruy Casaes
Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the Organisation of American States 

13 January 2012

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, to express our grave concern at recommendations that seek to limit the effectiveness of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, and to call on you to express your support for a broad interpretation of the recommendations so that the work of the Office is not undermined.

On June 29, 2011, the OAS Permanent Council created a working group to review the activities of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) with a view to "strengthening the Inter-American human rights system”. On 13 December 2011, a number of proposals were put forward by Ecuador, with Venezuela’s support, with the objective of weakening the Office of the Special Rapporteur. Several were watered down or defeated, though three recommendations remain and will be discussed in the next session of the OAS Permanent Council.

We are seriously concerned that the recommendations would severely undermine the work of the Office of the Special Rapporteur and have a negative effect on freedom of expression across the continent. Our concerns fall in to three areas.

First, it is proposed that reports published by all rapporteurs should in future be published in a single chapter of the organization’s annual report. The effect of this amendment would be to reduce the current 300- to 400-page report reviewing the state of freedom of expression in all the countries in the hemisphere published annually by the Office to a 2- to 3-page overview of activities. We suggest that a “strengthening” of the system would promote the production of additional specialized reports, such as that issued by the Office of the Special Rapporteur, rather than seeking to reduce them all to a section of a chapter of the IACHR’s annual report.

Second, the proposals call for a ‘balancing’ of resources between rapporteurships, working groups and units. The Office of the Special Rapporteur is the only rapporteurship that receives no funding from the IACHR or the regular fund of the OAS. It does, however, raise funding independently as part of its mandate and has been reasonably successful in so doing, thereby enjoying a budget that is higher than other rapporteurships. The only way to ‘balance’ resources would be to cut the funding levels of the Office of the Special Rapporteur (by as much as 90%) to the insufficient levels of the remaining rapporteurships. We respectfully suggest that if Member States were truly interested in strengthening the Inter-American system, they would provide adequate funding for the (system in) OAS budget, rather than advocating measures that risk further depleting what are already limited financial resources.

The third area of concern is the proposal to introduce a code of conduct to govern the management of IACHR rapporteurships. The Office of the Special Rapporteur is already governed by the IACHR Rules of Procedure and by established practice of the Commission, and this recommendation threatens to restrict the effectiveness and independence of the Office by seeking to impose additional restrictions on its work. We believe that this proposal must be considered in the context of current efforts by governments such as Ecuador to severely weaken the Office of the Special Rapporteur. Indeed, this issue was never raised until the Office of the Special Rapporteur began questioning Ecuadorean President Correa’s efforts to have critical journalists jailed for “aggravated defamation of a public official”.

We respectfully call on you to express support for the Office of the Special Rapporteur as it currently functions and to seek an urgent re-evaluation of the recommendations of the Working Group that would negatively impact the Office.

Yours sincerely,

Jacob Mathew
President

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

Erik Bjerager
President

World Editors Forum

WAN-IFRA is the global organization for the world’s newspapers and news publishers, with formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The organization groups 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.