New Legal Developments in the Inter-American System of Human Rights: Some Observations on the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons

The General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) on 15 June 2015 has adopted the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons. This Treaty, entered into force on January 2017, is the first legally binding document entirely devoted to the protection of the rights of older persons. The study contains a critical analysis of such Convention, in particular, in relation to the rights protected and the compliance system. In this latter context, a special attention has been paid to the conventional rule concerning the involment of the civil society, especially in the national monitoring process. The specific aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of the Convention on the promotion and protection of the rights of older persons, also in the perspective of the approval of a universal and binding legal instruments on this regard.