A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said Wednesday “it would be deeply regrettable” if Venezuela were to leave the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). President Hugo Chávez announced on Monday that Venezuela would seek to withdraw from the inter-governmental body, describing it as “a mechanism that the United States uses against us.” The IACHR is an autonomous branch of the Organization of American States tasked with the promotion and protection of human rights in the hemisphere.

Also on Monday, Chávez named various allies to seats on a newly created advisory body, the State Council, and tasked the committee with assessing the process for withdrawal. On Wednesday, the Venezuelan State representative for human rights, Germán Saltrón, argued that the IACHR is biased against Venezuela, and claimed that it endorsed the April 2002 attempted coup to unseat Chávez. Venezuela, said Saltrón, “is a democratic country and no one can come here to claim the moral high ground on human rights.” He added that the withdrawal may take one year.

Speaking to reporters during a daily press briefing yesterday, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, “Washington considers the body an effective and unique organization within the hemisphere.” Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), president of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, said that with his proposal to withdraw Venezuela from the body, Chávez “again is trying to silence advocates of human rights throughout the hemisphere… [which] will have widespread negative implications for democracy and fundamental freedoms.” In Americas Quarterly, IACHR Executive Secretary Santiago Canton has called the commission “a crucial tool against injustice—exceeding the imagination of its founders and mak¬ing it a force in the hemisphere and an example in the world.”

Last month, the IACHR released its 2011 annual report, which denounced the Venezuelan government’s political intolerance and violence against unionists, women and rural farmers.