Inter-American Commission Human Rights Thematic Hearing on U.S. Counternarcotics Operations in the Caribbean Eastern Pacific

Today the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) strayed far outside its mandate and acted beyond its competence in holding a thematic hearing on U.S. counter-narcoterrorism operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

The IACHR allowed the ACLU to exploit the hearing to try to force the United States to prematurely disclose arguments and evidence in two cases pending before U.S. federal courts. The IACHR lacks the competence to review the matters at issue, which concern the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law, not human rights law, and should not be a pawn in a domestic litigation strategy of the ACLU or any other party.

The United States calls on the Commission to adhere to its Statute and Rules of Procedure in the future and avoid inserting itself into matters that are in active domestic litigation and fall outside the human rights sphere. Convening hearings under these circumstances risks undermining—not strengthening—the credibility of the inter-American human rights system.

The Commission needs to redirect its focus toward the individual petitions languishing on its docket, sometimes for decades. This Commission owes it to those petitioners to address their concerns in a timely manner.