Statue of Isabella I the Catholic Queen in front of the seat of the Organization of American States in Washington D.C.
The Organization’s official languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. The Charter, the basic instrument governing OAS, makes no reference to the use of official languages. These references are to be found in the Rules of Procedure governing the various OAS bodies. Article 51 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly, the supreme body of the OAS, which meets once a year, states that English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish are the four official languages.
Article 28 stipulates that a Style Committee shall be set up with representatives of the four official languages to review the General Assembly resolutions and declarations. Article 53 states that proposals shall be presented in the four official languages.
The Rules of Procedure and Statutes of other bodies, such as the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI), the Permanent Executive Committee of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CEPCIDI), the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM), the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Inter-American Juridical Committee (CJI), technical bodies of the OAS, also mention the four official languages in which their meetings are to be conducted. Policy is therefore dictated through these instruments that require use of the four official languages at meetings.
Although a number of other languages have official status in one or more member states of OAS (Dutch in Suriname; Haitian Creole alongside French in Haiti; Quechua and Aymara in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia; Guaraní in Paraguay), they are not official languages of the Organization.
The relationships between various multinational organisations in the Americas (prior to 2019).
- Regional integration
- Organization of Ibero-American States
- Union of South American Nations
- Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
- Rio Group
- Rio Pact
- Statues of the Liberators
- Flag of the Organization of American States
- Young Americas Business Trust
- African Union
- European Union
- OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
- OAS Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI)
- OAS Foreign Trade Information System – SICE
- Outdoor sculptureat the OAS headquarters building.
- Educational Portal of the Americas
- OAS Lifts Ban On Cuba After 47 Yearsby Portia Siegelbaum, CBS News, 3 June 2009.
- Cuba’s Fidel Castro Calls OAS a “U.S. Trojan Horse”by Xinhua, 4 June 2009.
The Organization of American States in Haiti: Election Monitoring or Political Intervention?, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, October 2011.
Organization of American States
International diplomatic organizations
International organizations based in the Americas
International political organizations
United States–South American relations
Organizations established in 1948
United Nations General Assembly observers
1948 establishments in the United States