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Inter-American Court Of Human Rights - Description [2003] PICTRes 18 (20 November 2003)
Inter-American Court Of Human Rights
In
a manner similar to the ECHR, the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights (IACHPR) was established by the 1969 American
Convention of Human Rights, concluded under the aegis of the Organization
of American States, with the task to ensure, along with the Inter-American
Commission of Human Rights, the observance
of the rights and freedoms
protected thereunder.
However, although the institutional structure of the Inter-American and
the (old) European systems for the protection
of human rights are prima
facie very similar, and the normative provisions of the two cardinal treaties
correspond
in many regards, the environment in which the two systems developed
is radically different, accounting for the marked differences
between
the IACHPR and its European counterpart. Among the member States of the
Council of Europe, military and
other authoritarian governments have been
rare and short-lived, while in Latin America they were almost the norm
until well into the 1980s. The major challenges confronting the European
system were issues such as the length of pre-trial
detention, insufficient
redress against decisions by the State bureaucracy, defense of the right
of privacy,
and protection of human rights in the private sphere. Cases
involving a state of emergency have been relatively few. The
European
Court and the Commission rarely have to deal with completely unresponsive
or even antagonistic governments
or national systems.
Conversely, in Latin America, states of emergency, in which many rights
and freedoms guaranteed under the Inter-American
Convention are suspended,
have been common; the domestic judiciary has often been extremely weak
or tainted by
corruption; and practices like torture, disappearances and
summary executions have been prevalent. Many of the governments
with which
the Inter-American institutions need to cooperate have been ambivalent
towards those institutions
or even outright hostile, as the recent withdrawal
by Peru and Trinidad and Tobago of their acceptance of the IACHPR's
jurisdiction,
sadly bears witness.
The impact of such an uncooperative atmosphere on the work and effectiveness
of the Inter-American Court of Justice
is substantial. First of all, in
the case of the ECHR, States' consent to the Court's jurisdiction is implicit
in the ratification of the 1950 European Convention and its relevant protocols.
However, in the case of the IACHPR, consent
must be given, either unconditionally
or on condition of reciprocity, for a specific period or for specific
cases,
by way of a declaration presented to the Secretary General of the
OAS. This significantly restricts access to the Court.
Moreover, unlike
in the case of the new ECHR, individuals cannot directly
access the IACHPR to seek redress
for the violation of their rights. They
must file their complaints with the Inter-American Commission, which,
in turn, seeks vindication. A narrower and conditional access explains
why the IACHPR has been able to render only one-tenth
of the judgments
given by its European analogue per year. Other handicaps include the fact
that the IACHPR consists
of only seven judges, irrespective of the number
of States that have recognized the jurisdiction of the Court. Unlike their
colleagues in Strasbourg, the judges in San José, Costa Rica, sit
only part-time. Moreover, as a further peculiarity
and contrast to the
ECHR, although the Court is formally an organ of the Inter-American Convention
and not of
the OAS, its judges may be nationals of any member State of
the OAS, whether or not they are parties to the Convention.
While the ECHR has eventually become a fundamental institution, much cherished
by its constituency for fostering
democracy and individual's rights and
freedoms in Europe, in Latin America the IACHPR is still coping with uneven
and erratic support. In 1998, the Inter-American Court's budget was only
four percent of that of its European analogue.
It had one-tenth of the
personnel and no fund to assist claimants to pay the costs of litigation.
At the same
time, its docket is as crowded as ever.
Data obtained from the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (PICT)
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URL: http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/PICTRes/2003/18.html
