Are juridical persons human rights-holders?: Comments on the request for an Advisory Opinion submitted by the State of Panama

Abstract

An trascendental issue is presented once again in the Inter-American System on Human Rights with the request of Advisory Opinion submitted in April 28th, 2014 by Panama, which seeks an formal interpretative by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights about the ownership in human rights or not of legal entities relative to certain rights of the American Convention on Human Rights.

This article aims to determine which legal persons are not human rights holders, except in specific circumstances where the individual or collective private integral east of certain fundamental rights established in the American Convention on Human Rights. In this sense, it seeks to provide guidelines and lay those doctrinal and jurisprudential foundations to collaborate with such determination required by the State of Panama, establishing key guideline as actual conception of legal person, picture analysis and the identification of three key elements in the legal framework to discuss legal entities: a) the rationale of the legal entity: asset personalistic or substrate; b) identification of receptors for human rights violations, and c) special forms of groupings: foundations, associations and committees, among others.