Inter-American Dialogue

President Obama and the OAS

By Michael Shifter
Américas, April 1, 2009

A version of this piece is available in Spanish here.

It is no surprise that the new administration of Barack Obama has been getting a lot of advice about how it should approach US policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean in the coming years. There is a sense of enormous opportunity to shape a more productive relationship between Washington and the region.

Equally unsurprising is that most of the ideas have focused on particular policy questions that are of great concern to Latin America and that have generated considerable controversy. Included in the usual litany are such questions as trade, immigration, drugs, and Cuba. Also of keen interest are any changes in relations with such countries as Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, or Colombia. How will the new administration tackle this agenda? How should it tackle the agenda?

As important as these questions are, what is unfortunately seldom asked is how Obama will deal with the inter-American system and, specifically, the Organization of American States. Will the new administration continue to give it ample financial assistance (roughly 60 percent of the total budget) and perfunctory political support? Or will it attempt to reenergize an institution that has been limited in its ability to carry out critical functions? The fact is that it is hard to separate the specific policy challenges facing the United States in Latin America from those facing the hemisphere’s institutional architecture.

Given budgetary pressures and other foreign policy priorities, the Obama administration is unlikely to give more aid money or even attention to Latin America. But what should be reasonably expected of Obama is greater emphasis on multilateral diplomacy than has been the case in recent years. Genuine consultation with partners, in this hemisphere and elsewhere, has been a constant theme of Obama’s since he announced for the presidency two years so. It is also a central trait embodied in his leadership style.

For reasons of pragmatism as well as principle, Obama would be wise to elevate the importance of the OAS. Any efforts by the new US administration to support democratic governance, the rule of law, or human rights would have little credibility or legitimacy unless conducted in concert with other regional governments. On these and other issues, the OAS offers a unique forum and much-needed space to air different perspectives and explore cooperation.

In addition, the technical expertise of the organization has given it an impressive track record for addressing transnational problems in a professional manner. Through the work of the independent Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, for example, the OAS has developed an ample body of hemispheric jurisprudence and has put a spotlight on an array of critical human rights concerns. Set up in 1998, the special rapporteur for freedom of expression has called attention to violations of press freedom across the region. The efforts of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in San Jose, Costa Rica, have been similarly significant. Election monitoring under OAS auspices in select countries has become a regular, expected practice since the early 1990s.

The Obama team can make advances on questions of democracy and human rights – the core of the OAS mission – by giving the OAS greater political weight and mobilizing support from other governments for its valuable work. To be sure, the obstacles to this path are formidable. As current OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza has said often, with good reason, the strain today in inter-American affairs has made political consensus on an array of fundamental issues exceedingly difficult. The problem goes beyond whatever tensions may exist between the United States and other member governments. There is also clearly friction among a number of Latin American governments across a range of issues, including economic and energy questions or long-simmering border disputes. In a context of such political disarray and mutual suspicion, agreement and effectiveness at the multilateral level is particularly elusive.

But the Obama administration can build on its goodwill and the previous accomplishments of the inter-American system to pursue elements of its regional agenda through the Organization of American States. Despite the difficulties, there is precedent for such an approach. Immediately following the Cold War, the government of George H. W. Bush worked together with other like-minded governments to build a broad consensus around the collective defense of democracy in the Americas. On the heels of the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s rule, there was a meeting in June 1991 in Santiago, Chile of the OAS General Assembly, where a landmark resolution was adopted that, for the first time, called on all member states to respond to any interruption in the constitutional, democratic order. In fact, the OAS did respond – albeit with varying degrees of success – in four different cases during the 1990s: Haiti in 1991, Peru in 1992, Guatemala in 1993, and Paraguay in 1996. Subsequent resolutions and declarations reinforcing a collective concern for democracy culminated in passage of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Lima, Peru, on September 11, 2001.

Since then, OAS responses to increasingly complicated and troubling situations have been less forceful and assured. Of course, that is more a measure of the political problems in hemispheric relations and not necessarily of the available instruments and framework enshrined in the organization. The task is to activate those mechanisms, through sensitive and sophisticated political maneuvering which, in recent years, has been markedly absent in the organization. Especially on political questions related to democracy and the rule of law in the Americas, it would make sense for the Obama administration to mark the beginning of a new era by consulting with other governments and refashioning a coalition that is prepared to address violations of democratic norms seriously and collectively.

Though political issues are clearly under the purview the OAS, other hemispheric concerns – including trade, immigration, drugs, and the environment – can also be usefully addressed in the organization. Indeed, the OAS is precisely the right forum to air important policy differences on such contentious issues involving the US, Canada, and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It also has developed methodological expertise in each of these issue areas that can help forge consensus positions:

Drugs: Apart from his support for US, anti-drug aid programs for Colombia, Mexico and Central America, Obama has had little to say regarding how his administration plans to deal with the drug problem, which is perhaps the most serious threat to democratic governance in the region. Multilateral discussions are essential for a policy that is not yielding satisfactory results, and that has nearly been viewed as Washington’s prerogative. Especially given the value of the multilateral evaluation work performed by Inter-American Drug Abuse Commission (CICAD, member governments should coordinate political consultations with the OAS to develop alternative policies.
Trade: On trade, it makes sense for the OAS to consider and discuss the Obama administration’s proposals for incorporating labor and environmental protections into future trade agreements. Free trade has met with controversy in much of the region, and the OAS can serve as forum to assess past agreements and identify how best to proceed.
Immigration: Obama also favors a comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. Though there are major domestic political obstacles in moving ahead quickly on this front – the issue risks dividing Obama’s Democratic Party – immigration is bound to be eventually addressed. It is an issue that is relevant to all OAS member states and that has important implications for inter-American affairs. Reviewing regional norms and practices on immigration makes a great deal of sense.
Environment: Obama has also signaled that under his administration the US will be committed to carrying out a “green revolution.” His concern fits well with positions taken by many Latin American governments regarding the proper balance between protecting the environment and pursuing economic development. The OAS offers a space to review practices and formulas that work best.
Cuba: Perhaps the highest expectations in Latin America for the Obama administration have to do with a shift in policy towards Cuba. If not an end to the embargo, there should at least be a significant opening and greater attention to diplomacy. Differences over the US embargo have long been the major source of irritation in US-Latin American relations. Though Obama is likely to fulfill his promise to lift restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban Americans, it is unclear how far and how quickly he will move beyond that.

Finding a way to reincorporate Cuba in multilateral organizations such as the OAS would be cheered in most of Latin America. Indeed, at the Latin American and Caribbean summit meeting in mid-December in Bahia, Brazil, Cuba was formally brought into the Rio Group. Significantly, neither the US, Canada nor Europe was present at that “mega-summit.” Latin Americans are clearly seeking regional forums to talk about and work out a range of common problems. Some, like the Rio Group, date from the mid-1980s, while others, like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), were set up only last year.

The Obama administration is likely to recognize the multiplicity of such forums as an expression of a transformed and increasingly assertive region that is expanding its global ties and interests. In this context, the OAS and the Summit of the Americas – both of which include the US and Canada – perform valuable and complementary functions to the other, entirely Latin American forums. Obama, who has emphasized pragmatism in all policy areas, will apply the same philosophy to US-Latin American relations and work through different institutional mechanisms based on the issue under consideration. In that menu of policy options, a more vigorous OAS should figure prominently.

Of course, opportunities to make significant advances on US-Latin American relations will be limited until the current economic and financial crisis is resolved or at least mitigated. That concern is paramount in the minds of most Latin Americans. Brazilian president Luis Inácio da Silva spoke on behalf of many in the region when he said the best thing Obama could do for Latin America was to put the US economic house in order. That is precisely what Obama is trying to do, but other issues have to be addressed in the meantime. To increase the chances for success, working through multilateral organizations like the OAS is the incoming administration’s best bet.