Part II Means of Protection, Ch.VII Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, s.4 Procedure, Article 51

This chapter focuses on Article 51 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). Article 51 of the ACHR closes up Section 4 of the Chapter VII dedicated to the “Procedure” before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, applied when dealing with an individual petition (Article 44) or an inter-State communication (Article 45). The provision describes the potential results of the procedure, that is, the adoption of a report that would contain the “opinion,” “conclusion,” and “recommendations” of the Commission. The article must be understood in light of Article 49 (Friendly settlement) and Article 50 (“preliminary report”). An Article 51 report is adopted when the friendly settlement process has failed, and in case of violations stated by the Commission, when the case is neither brought to the Court nor fixed by the Commission itself. Accordingly, the Article 51 report is said to be “final,” as it terminates the litigation proceeding before the Inter-American organs.