Part III General and Transitory Provisions, Ch.X Signature, Ratification, Reservations, Amendments, Protocols, and Denunciation, Article 77

Abstract

This chapter examines Article 77 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), the purpose of which is very similar to the previous provision. The object is to allow the ACHR in its 1969 original version to be amended. Article 76 provides for a modality of modification through amendments, while Article 77 refers to another technique for modifying the content of the treaty, namely, the adoption of protocols. Unlike the amendment to the ACHR, the protocol does not merge into the original amended text but is a formally independent international legal act that is additional to the Convention. It is also a treaty act that must be negotiated and must obtain the consent of States before it can enter into force. Despite these differences with the amendment, the purpose of Articles 76 and 77 is the same, that is, to allow a convention negotiated and drafted in the late 1960s to adapt and transform treaty relations between States. The purpose of the protocol as a text that overturns these treaty relations is therefore to create new ones, as soon as States agree to commit themselves to them.