American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man

The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, also called the Bogota Declaration, was adopted on 2 May 1948 at the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogota, the same conference that founded the Organization of American States, making it the world's first general international human rights instrument, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by several months. Though a declaration rather than a binding treaty, the Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights have held it creates binding obligations for OAS member states, and it continues to apply to members that have not ratified the later American Convention on Human Rights, including Cuba, the United States and Canada.