What OAS is and how it works

The instrument, and where it is kept

The Charter was signed at Bogotá on 30 April 1948, at the Ninth International Conference of American States, by 21 governments. It did not come into force until 13 December 1951, the day Colombia deposited its ratification: the state that had hosted the signing was the one whose instrument completed it. The General Secretariat is its own depositary and holds the original in Washington, together with every ratification since. The text was registered with the United Nations Secretariat on 16 January 1952 under number 1609, and it is equally authentic in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.

Four protocols have amended it: Buenos Aires on 27 February 1967, Cartagena de Indias on 5 December 1985, Washington on 14 December 1992 and Managua on 10 June 1993. The article numbers used below are the ones the consolidated text carries.

What is older than the Charter

The apparatus is older than the organisation that inherited it. The First International Conference of American States sat in Washington from 2 October 1889 to 19 April 1890 and agreed on 14 April 1890 to set up the International Union of American Republics, with a Commercial Bureau in Washington as its agency. The fourth conference renamed that agency the Pan American Union in 1910. Canada was not at the conference of 1889 and did not deposit a ratification of the Charter until 8 January 1990.

The door, and the date it closed

Article 8 confines membership to independent states of the hemisphere that were United Nations members on 10 December 1985, and to the non-autonomous territories named in document AG/doc.1939/85 of 5 November 1985, when they become independent. That is a closed list rather than a standing invitation: an applicant that does not appear on it has no route in, whatever it does. Where a route exists, Articles 6 and 7 set the procedure, which is a note to the Secretary General, a recommendation of the Permanent Council and a decision of the General Assembly, each carried by a two-thirds vote.

An earlier bar ran alongside that one. The Protocol of Buenos Aires blocked any consideration of an application from a political entity whose territory had become subject, before 18 December 1964, to litigation or claim between an extracontinental country and a member of the Organization, until the dispute was ended by some peaceful procedure. The transitory Article 146 kept that bar alive until 10 December 1990. Belize and Guyana signed and deposited on the same day, 8 January 1991, four weeks after it lapsed.

Guatemala's own ratification, deposited on 6 April 1955, carries a reservation that none of the stipulations of the Charter may be considered an impediment to its assertion of rights over the territory of Belize. The General Secretariat put the reservation to the signatory governments, which accepted it after Guatemala declared that it implied no alteration to the Charter. Both states are on this page.

What membership does not commit a state to

Joining the Organization is not joining everything the inter-American system contains, and the ratification file says so in the members' own words. Canada's declaration at ratification records that Articles 27 and 28 create no military obligations for it, that it did not plan to adhere to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance concluded at Rio de Janeiro on 2 September 1947, and that it would not carry the Organization's correspondence free of charge in Canadian mails. The United States ratified with a reservation that no provision enlarges the powers of its federal government or limits the powers of the several states of the federal union.

Human rights sit on a second treaty with a roster of its own. The American Convention on Human Rights was adopted at San José on 22 November 1969 and came into force on 18 July 1978. Canada has never signed it. The United States signed on 1 June 1977 and has not ratified. Trinidad and Tobago acceded on 28 May 1991, gave notice of denunciation on 26 May 1998, and the denunciation took effect on 26 May 1999 under Article 78 of that convention, which asks a year's notice where the Charter asks two years'.

Suspension, exclusion, and the difference between them

Article 9, added by the Protocol of Washington, lets the General Assembly suspend by a two-thirds vote a member whose democratically constituted government has been overthrown by force, once diplomatic efforts to restore it have failed. The Inter-American Democratic Charter, adopted at Lima on 11 September 2001, sets out the procedure in its Article 21 and the lifting of a suspension in its Article 22. Both have been used once: Honduras was suspended by resolution AG/RES. 2 (XXXVII-E/09) on 4 July 2009, and the suspension was lifted with immediate effect on 1 June 2011.

Cuba is a separate case and the papers keep it separate. Resolution VI, adopted at the Eighth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs at Punta del Este on 31 January 1962, excluded the government of Cuba from participation in the inter-American system. What ended in 2009 was Resolution VI rather than a membership: Cuba's ratification of the Charter was deposited on 16 July 1952 and has never been withdrawn. The General Assembly, meeting at San Pedro Sula on 3 June 2009, resolved that Resolution VI ceases to have effect, and that participation would be the result of a process of dialogue initiated at the request of the government of Cuba.

The exit

Article 143 keeps the Charter in force indefinitely and lets any member denounce it in writing to the General Secretariat, with effect two years after the notification is received. The depositary's own table records what followed each use of it. A letter from Nicaragua dated 18 November 2021 was received on 19 November 2021, and the entry states that the denunciation entered into effect on 19 November 2023 and that Nicaragua ceased to be a State Party to the Charter. A note from Venezuela dated 27 April 2017 was received on 28 April 2017, expressing a decision to denounce; a further note dated 8 February 2019 was received on 7 March 2019, and the table gives no date of effect against either. Different readings of that file put a different number of members on this page. The catalogue records the entries and settles neither.