The International Commission of Jurists, by a decision of its Executive Committee in March 1975, decided to undertake a study on the application in Latin America of the Conventions relating to asylum.
The plight of refugees who are seeking to escape from persecution raises one of the· major problems affecting human rights at the present day. The problem is one which is to be found in all regions of the world, and each year sees fresh flows of refugees from one country or another, sometimes accompanied by serious violations of the rights of these refugees.
The International Commission of Jurists decided to confine the study to the Latin-American experience.’ The resources of the ICJ made it impossible to undertake a universal study and Latin America is the region which enjoys the longest tradition of the practice of asylum, and has the most highly developed legal framework in international law relating to asylum.
It is also a region which has in recent years seen numerous flows of refugees seeking to escape persecution and the application of the relevant conventions has given rise to many difficulties. Also the ICJ was in possession of detailed information relating to a number of specific individual cases which seemed to provide a useful starting point for a study of this kind.
Latin America-asylum-thematic report-1975-eng (full text in English, PDF)
Latin America-asylum-thematic report-1975-spa (full text in Spanish, PDF)