On 26 August 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) announced its judgment on preliminary objections in Chirinos Salamanca y otros vs. Venezuela, issued on 21 August 2025. Given the stakes, the decision was anxiously awaited. The core question was whether Venezuela, where serious human rights abuses have been documented for over a decade, remains a state party to the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) and within the IACtHR’s contentious jurisdiction. The Court answered affirmatively, unanimously stating that ‘the American Convention on Human Rights is in force in Venezuela’ and that it has jurisdiction to hear the case.
This was far from a foregone conclusion. On 10 September 2012, Venezuela withdrew from the ACHR and renounced the jurisdiction of the IACtHR. The denunciation took effect in 2013. How, then, did the Court find that Venezuela remains a state party? The answer turns on a 2019 instrument of (re)ratification deposited with the Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary-General by Juan Guaidó, with retroactive effects to 2013. Guaidó had been declared Acting President of Venezuela by the opposition-majority National Assembly, even as Nicolás Maduro, who became President of Venezuela in 2013, retained uninterrupted control over state institutions.
This post analyses the Court’s response in three steps. First, it reconstructs the Court’s reasoning. Second, it isolates and tests the Court’s strongest line of argument. We argue that, read in its best light, the Court held that, because the OAS political bodies recognised Guaidó as President, he was an authority competent under international law to express Venezuela’s consent to be bound by an inter-American treaty. However, we note that, in the process, the Court stepped into muddled doctrinal ground without real need and understated the contestation surrounding the recognition of Guaidó within the OAS. Third, this post examines the Court’s resort to human rights teleology as an additional frame to affirm that the Convention remains in force for Venezuela. We conclude by examining the Court’s two-government paradox: Venezuela is treated as bound in 2019 by Guaidó, yet procedural representation before the IACtHR still runs through Maduro’s government.
The Court’s Decision
The case concerns alleged human rights violations against twelve police officers held in arbitrary detention between 2016 and 2018. It was filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2017 and, in 2022, the Commission referred it to the Court. Venezuela, represented by an agent appointed by Maduro, stated that its participation does not waive the legal effects of its denunciation of the ACHR. The state raised two preliminary objections; this post addresses the more fundamental one: a challenge to the Court’s jurisdiction ratione voluntatis (given the 2012 denunciation) and ratione temporis (because the relevant events occurred after that denunciation took effect).
The broader question of Venezuela’s status within the OAS has been debated for over a decade (see, e.g., Arrocha Olabuenaga; Gómez Guaimara & Briceño Amaro). In this case, the Court built on six key facts to reject Venezuela’s objection and hold that the 2019 (re)ratification was a valid act producing full legal effects:
1. On 5 June 2018, the OAS General Assembly resolved that the 20 May 2018 presidential election in Venezuela lacked ‘legitimacy’. It was in that context, the Court notes, that the National Assembly designated its President, Juan Guaidó, as Acting President of Venezuela in January 2019 (¶39).
2. On 10 January 2019, the OAS Permanent Council, where all member states are represented through a permanent representative, decided ‘[n]ot to recognize the legitimacy of the regime of Nicolás Maduro’ as of that date and considered ‘the 2019-2025 presidential term beginning in Venezuela … the result of an illegitimate process’ (¶40).
3. On 10 April 2019, the OAS Permanent Council recognised the Permanent Representative to the OAS designated by the National Assembly (¶41).
4. On 28 June 2019, the OAS General Assembly – the Organization’s supreme organ, meeting in annual sessions – confirmed the Permanent Council’s decision (¶42).
5. On 1 July 2019, Guaidó signed the instrument (re)ratifying the ACHR, expressly giving it retroactive effect as of 10 September 2013 (¶44).
6. On 31 July 2019, the OAS Secretary-General, in its role as depositary, notified member states of the deposit. According to the Court, no objections were raised, and OAS records have since listed Venezuela as a state party to the ACHR (¶45).
The Court considered that ‘[t]he decisions adopted by the OAS organs are the result of a deliberative process inherent to the Organization’s institutional framework and consistent with its purposes’ (¶47). On these premises, and invoking Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) Article 7(2)(a), the Court concluded that:
[I]n accordance with positive international law, the “Interim” President, who was appointed by the National Assembly of Venezuela, was empowered to conclude treaties with the States that granted him recognition, including multilateral treaties, particularly in forums where he had been admitted, his representatives had been credentialed, or the depositary of the treaty was an international organization before which he was accredited, as in the case of the OAS. (¶48)
The Court thus found that Guaidó’s ratification of the ACHR was performed by ‘the head of a government duly accredited before the depositary international organization’ (¶49). Given that the Court treated the 31 July 2019 (re)ratification as retroactive, it expressly stated that the American Convention ‘is in force for the State since its initial ratification on 9 August 1977’ (¶68).
A Legal Analysis of the Court’s Best Argument
Read in its best light, the Court’s strongest argument runs like this: VCLT Article 7(2)(a) establishes that Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers for Foreign Affairs represent the State ex officio: they do not need to produce full powers. Because the VCLT does not define who holds those offices, the Court relies on acts within the OAS: recognition and credentialing decisions of the OAS political organs and the behaviour of its member states, particularly given that the OAS Secretary-General serves as the ACHR’s treaty depositary. On this view, the analysis brackets substantive criteria (such as political legitimacy) and instead uses OAS recognition and depositary practice to identify, for VCLT purposes, who counts as a 7(2)(a) office-holder in this forum.
Articulated this way, the argument spares the Court a fraught determination of governmental identity: at his peak, roughly sixty states recognised Guaidó, but he never exercised effective control over the state apparatus, and Venezuela’s seats in major international organisations – most notably at the United Nations – remained filled by Maduro’s appointees. That is precisely why the line is appealing: it lets the Court treat the 2019 (re)ratification – and the broader question of Venezuela’s representation in the OAS – as flowing from decisions of the OAS depositary and political organs and the conduct of a majority of OAS member states, rather than from any judicial proclamation of legitimacy. In short, if there is a mess, it is OAS-made, not Court-made.
However, the judgment then steps onto far more contentious doctrinal ground. It asserts that Guaidó was ‘empowered to conclude treaties with the states that granted him recognition’ (¶48). That claim is unconvincing. It is one thing to read the dense OAS practice and, as a result, treat Guaidó as capable of binding Venezuela for the purposes of an inter-American treaty. It is quite another to posit a floating capacity to conclude treaties with any recognising state. VCLT Article 7(2)(a) sets a status-based rule: HoSs, HoGs, and MFAs represent their state ex officio. It is not a recognition-dependent licence that would make a state’s treaty-making capacity vary by counterparty depending on who recognises whom. Taken literally, the Court’s formula would mean that a single recognising state could enable Guaidó to incur sovereign obligations – say, a state-to-state loan – merely because that counterparty recognised his government.
Perhaps more importantly, the Court understates the degree of contestation surrounding the OAS Permanent Council and General Assembly resolutions on which it grounds its decision. For example, OAS Permanent Council Resolution CP/RES. 1124 (2217/19) – where the Permanent Council recognised the Permanent Representative designated by the National Assembly – passed with 18 votes in favour, 9 against, 6 abstentions, and 1 absence. If one vote had gone the other way, the resolution would not have been adopted. Notably, twelve states placed objections on the record. Thus, Mexico stated that:
This resolution […] goes against international law and the basic documents of the Organization of American States institutional framework. […] The resolution places the individual political positions of sovereign states above international law and the basic instruments of this regional body, which were agreed on in order to regulate the coexistence of states within the Organization. A state’s diplomatic representation in the OAS is based on legal considerations arising from rules of international law that govern the Organization’s constitution and its relations with its member states; accordingly, it is independent of all political considerations regarding the situation in any state.
The OAS General Assembly Resolution AG/RES. 2944 (XLIX-O/19), confirming the Permanent Council’s decision was also not unanimous. Ten states recorded objections. There have also been initiatives from member states to revoke the representative of the National Assembly to the OAS and acknowledge that Venezuela ceased to be an OAS member on 27 April 2019 (see, e.g., AG/doc.5785/22).
Ultimately, and despite these serious objections, it is not unreasonable for the Court to rely on the OAS political organs, the depositary, and the conduct (including acquiescence) of other member states as corroborative indicators of authority to represent the state for the purposes of consenting to the ACHR. However, the Court’s reasoning did not stop there.
Human Rights Teleology on Top of Public International Law
The representation-based argument is the strongest pillar of the decision. The Commission, which acts as the applicant in contentious cases before the Court, and the victims’ representatives pressed that line: ‘In case of discrepancies, these should be addressed by the States Parties or the competent organs, not by the Commission or the Court’ (¶32). The Court, however, did not simply defer to the OAS, a majority of its state parties, or a majority of the state parties to the ACHR. Having grounded its jurisdiction in the law of treaties, the Court added a teleological layer, reading the legal question through the purported human rights logic of the Inter-American System.
To set that frame, the Court invoked the principle of collective guarantee, which it defines as ‘a duty on States to act in concert and to cooperate to protect the rights and freedoms they have undertaken to secure by joining the Inter-American System’ (¶47). In this light, it said that the ‘actions of the Depositary, the institutional practice of OAS organs, and the applicable rules must be analysed and interpreted through the core principles of the Inter-American Human Rights System: in particular, the effectiveness of its protection mechanism, the special nature of human rights treaties, their collective implementation, and the pro persona principle’ (¶50).
The Court also leaned on the legislative will behind the 31 July 2019 instrument and construed it through a human rights lens. It noted that the National Assembly resolved to give the (re)ratification full legal effects, including an express retroactive acceptance of the Court’s contentious jurisdiction to preserve continuity between the 2013 denunciation and the 2019 act. For the Court, that decision signaled an intention to deem the treaty bond uninterrupted (¶52). The Court presents this interpretation as ‘coherent with the principles of good faith, pacta sunt servanda, effectiveness, and the pro persona principle, which requires giving priority, in interpreting human rights treaties, to the reading that best secures their continued validity and the effective protection of the rights recognized’ (¶53). Similarly, in discussing Venezuela’s withdrawal, the Court asserted, as obiter dicta, that ‘in certain contexts, the nature of human rights treaties and their impact requires a distinct approach from the general rules of international law’ (¶61).
Overall, the Court conflates two questions that should be kept distinct: which officials may bind the state – the issue before it – and whether and why human rights protection should prevail – an issue it was not required to address.
Conclusion: Who Binds, Who Answers
The judgment crystallises a paradox: Guaidó, who was recognised as Acting President by the OAS political organs but was never in effective control, is treated as having bound the state in 2019, while Maduro’s administration – incumbent before and after Guaidó, and, arguably, during Guaidó – litigates through its appointed agent and will be the addressee of compliance.
The Court did not create this dilemma; it had to navigate it. Still, it did itself no favours. Relying solely on the OAS political organs, the depositary, and the conduct of a majority of state parties as corroborative indicators would have sufficed to reach the same result. However, the Court also treated recognition as a source of treaty-making capacity and added a teleological layer that can blur rules on authority and non-retroactivity.
The broader Inter-American System, including the OAS, has struggled to advance significant progress on democracy and human rights in Venezuela. In Latin America, international law has long served as a common language for cooperation across political divides. Bending that language, even for laudable ends, risks eroding the very cooperation that Venezuela and the region urgently need – cooperation that the Court has undoubtedly worked hard to foster.
As the judgment is currently available only in Spanish, all translations are the authors’ own.
Image: AP Chirinos-4 by CorteIDH, CC BY-SA 2.0.
