The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) today approved the schedule of meetings for the last stage of the process of reflection on the Functioning of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for strengthening the Inter-American System of Human Rights (ISHR) that will culminate in a Special General Assembly on March 22 in Washington, DC.

The Chair of the Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Nicaragua, Ambassador Denis Moncada, said the approved calendar is “flexible” and subject to the progress of discussions on proposals to be presented at the General Assembly in March. The approved schedule is based upon Annex I of the working paper presented by the Chair of the Permanent Council in January.

The event on March 22 will conclude a process that began at the General Assembly of El Salvador, in June 2011, with the creation of the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Council which presented its report of recommendations January 2012. Subsequently, the General Assembly held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in June 2012, instructed the Permanent Council to complete its work in this area before the end of the first trimester of 2013. To meet the objective, the Council adopted a Work Plan in September 2012, which is currently in its third phase, entitled “Preparation of a report for the consideration of the General Assembly.”

At the special meeting today, the Council also began discussions on the draft report of proposals for the General Assembly Meeting. During the session the delegations from Mexico, Guatemala, United States, Canada, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, Bolivia and Argentina all took the floor.

During the meeting, the representatives of the Member Countries expressed their solidarity with Mexico with respect to the explosion last weekend in a building of the oil company PEMEX, in which more than 30 people died.