Guatemala, El Salvador ordered to heed rulings

Guatemala and El Salvador have a terrible record in terms of compliance with the recommendations and sentences handed down by the inter-American human rights bodies on cases involving appalling abuses like forced disappearance, torture and massacres committed during the armed conflicts in the two Central American countries. Since the peace agreements that brought the civil wars to an end - in 1992 in El Salvador and 1996 in Guatemala - governments in both countries have been resistant to implementing the recommendations and rulings issued by the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The two regional human rights bodies are autonomous Organisation of American States (OAS) organs. In Central America, Guatemala holds the record of 14 Inter-American Court sentences which are, at least in theory, binding and unappealable.