ABSTRACT
Latin American governments, social movements, and regional organizations have made a far bigger contribution to the idea and practice of international human rights than has previously been recognized. The American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man was in fact the “the first broadly detailed enumeration of rights to be adopted by an intergovernmental organization”. Many do not recognize the crucial protagonism of Latin American social movements and the inter-American system of human rights in championing the cause of accountability for past human rights violations in the region and the world. Amitav Acharya critiques the study of normative change for ignoring the appeal of local and regional norms and for failing to locate agency in local and regional actors. American states, regional organizations, and social movements were much more than passive recipients of an international human rights regime imposed from outside. The Chilean delegation to the San Francisco conference made the relationship clearer.
