E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3 page 10 IV. POSITIVE ASPECTS 26. Argentina’s commitment to human rights in its foreign policy, which has been characterized by its cooperation with international organizations, has become more marked since the Government of President Kirchner took office. Key posts in the new administration are held by former officials of both the universal and inter-American human rights systems. Guidelines have been laid down for compliance with the recommendations of the international bodies of both systems, which refer above all to the continuing problem of impunity in Argentina and to a number of other aspects such as institutional reform. As far as individual cases are concerned, the Government’s policy has been to favour friendly settlements when there is clear evidence of human rights violations. The Government is also complying with the recommendation contained in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 to prepare, with the assistance of civil society, a national plan of action in the field of human rights. 27. Argentina had been visited by several special rapporteurs of the Commission on Human Rights before the visit by this Working Group. It has deposited the instrument of ratification for the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and is moving towards ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. A human rights group has been set up within the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR); the group reports to the ministries of justice. The Government, through the Office of the Secretary for Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice, not only gave the Working Group a copy of its own report but also made available to it reports by non-governmental human rights organizations. This was the first time the Working Group had received from a government reports of this kind from NGOs. This demonstrates that the Government takes NGOs seriously and is looking into a number of alternative approaches to problems entailing State responsibility. 28. Some long-standing obstacles to efforts to combat impunity have been removed. The executive decree under which requests for extradition were automatically rejected in cases of serious and flagrant violations of human rights committed between 1976 and 1983 has been repealed; and Congress has adopted a law declaring the Punto Final Act (No. 23.492) and the Due Obedience Act (No. 23.521) irrevocably null and void. The repeal of these laws has paved the way for the prosecution of perpetrators of serious human rights violations during the military dictatorship. Although legal action has been taken to have the new provisions declared unconstitutional, the lower courts have opened a significant number of cases in which serious human rights violations committed during the dictatorship are being investigated. This progress against impunity now makes it easier to combat more effectively human rights violations committed by State agents. 29. The Government is also making efforts to decriminalize social protest. To this end, it has set up a commission of eminent jurists to propose solutions at the institutional level in order to reconcile the rights of third parties with the exercise of freedom of expression and the freedom to demonstrate and thus avoid criminalizing protesters’ demands. No one has been detained on these grounds lately and work is under way on a bill to reform article 194 of the Criminal Code