Religious Freedom in Cuba and The Inter-American Human Rights System:

Limits and Potential of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Abstract

The article examines the limits and potentialities of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in protecting religious freedom in Cuba, a state that has not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights and does not recognize the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Adopting a qualitative approach of a legal-dogmatic and documentary-analytical nature, the study reviews the international and Inter-American normative framework on religious freedom and analyzes country reports, annual reports, thematic documents, press releases, and precautionary measures issued by the IACHR concerning Cuba. On this basis, it reconstructs the normative content of religious freedom within the Inter-American Human Rights System, traces the evolution of restrictions imposed by the Cuban regime on religious denominations and organizations, and investigates the political uses of such restrictions. The findings indicate that, despite the formal recognition of religious freedom, state practice on the island remains characterized by administrative control, discretionary interference, and systematic surveillance, which transform the regulation of faith into an instrument of political ordering and containment of dissent. The article also identifies significant indirect effects of the IACHR’s monitoring activity, particularly in the densification of protection standards, the preservation of the memory of violations, and the generation of reputational costs for the Cuban state. It concludes that religious freedom operates as a sensitive indicator of democratic quality and that, even under severe institutional constraints, Inter-American monitoring contributes to the gradual construction of international accountability in contexts of religious persecution.