The increasing role of solidarity in the Inter-American system: from founding principle to a legal obligation?

Elisabeth Salmón presents solidarity within the Inter-American Human Rights system. The notion of solidarity is not absent from the Inter-American Human Rights System. However, it still exists as a marginal insertion and is most frequently mentioned in connection with other notions such as cooperation, the fight against poverty and the defense of economic, social, and cultural rights. In this chapter, Salmon analyzes the direct and implicit allusions to the concept of solidarity in the international instruments adopted by the Inter-American states; the decisions, declarations, and reports issued by its organs (namely, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights); and the constitutions of the Inter-American states. On the other hand, she considers the current challenges to the advance of solidarity in the region such as corruption and inequality. This analysis will clarify the meaning and the current legal force of the notion of solidarity within the Inter-American Human Rights System and will show that this indirect recognition of solidarity provides a basis for further interpretive development of the system’s organs and for a stronger presence of solidarity within the region’s human rights institutional and normative framework.