Abstract
On 20th December 1999, demonstrators in front of the American embassy in Panama demanded that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the OAS should take a decision in the Salas vs. USA case. For the first time in history, a huge group of people lodged a complaint against the United States government at an international jurisdiction for its breach of the state personality and the integrity of the Panama territory. This relatively unknown event illustrates the complex issue of American impunity. There is a great demand for responsibility of US actions in the international arena. However, the term accountability, which originally refers to the economic sphere, is not usually associated to a state or a government.
