Inter-American Democratic Charter - Provisions

Provisions

Article 1 frames the purpose and goal of the Charter:

"The peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it."

Title IV establishes how the Organization is to react following "an unconstitutional interruption of the democratic order or an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state." Article 19 states that such an interruption or alteration constitutes "an insurmountable obstacle to its government's participation in sessions of the General Assembly, the Meeting of Consultation, the Councils of the Organization, the specialized conferences, the commissions, working groups, and other bodies of the Organization." Consequently, Article 20 provides that following such a breakdown in a member state's constitutional regime, any other member state or the Secretary General may request the immediate convocation of the Organization's Permanent Council to undertake a collective assessment of the situation and to take such decisions as it deems appropriate. Should the Permanent Council's diplomatic efforts prove fruitless in re-establishing the constitutional order, or if the situation is deemed particularly urgent, a special session of the General Assembly may be convened to address the matter. That special session may then resolve, by a two-thirds vote of the member states, to suspend the membership of the state in question.

Once the situation that led to suspension has been resolved, the suspended member may be re-instated by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly.

The Charter contains additional provisions dealing with actions to be adopted by member states to promote a culture of democracy within their countries, and it sets a framework for the conduction of the OAS's electoral observation missions in the member states.