Araguaia Event - December 2011 - Intro and Speaker No. 1

Introduction by Geoff Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America and Speaker No. I, Michael Camilleri, senior legal advisor to the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

INTRODUCTION
The National Security Archive marked the one year anniversary* of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights issued its landmark ruling in the case "Gomes Lund and Others (Guerrilha do Araguaia) v. Brazil" with a public event co-sponsored by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). The event featured a panel discussion with experts on Brazil, access to information and archives, as well as the emerging right to information and justice movement in Latin America.

SPEAKER NO. 1
Michael Camilleri provided a brief history of inter-american court jurisprudence on the right to information that led up to the Araguaia ruling, including the case of Myrna Mack of Guatemala and Rosendo Radillo of Mexico. The Araguaia case, as Camilleri explained, brings together citizens' right to justice and the right to access to information. The ruling states that that information on human rights cannot be denied to prosecutors, and that victims should also have a right to this information. Camilleri suggested future opportunities the commission could take to further the right to information, specifically mentioning the "Diario Militar" case of Guatemala, coming before the Inter-American court in February of 2012.

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