06 August 2024
The Right to Defend Rights
On April 21, Narciso Beleño, a rural (campesino) leader and human rights defender who worked for the restitution of land and the sustainable exploitation of natural resources in Colombia, was murdered. Sadly, this is not an isolated case. 79% of the murders of human rights defenders occur in the Americas, with 47% in Colombia alone. Two recent judgments by the Constitutional Court of Colombia and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have now addressed the phenomenon and gave legal life to the right to defend human rights. Continue reading >>
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16 May 2024
Upgrading Environmental Rights
In Community of La Oroya v. Peru the IACtHR for the first time found a violation of the autonomous right to a healthy environment in a non-indigenous context related to the long-lasting environmental contamination of a community by toxic substances. La Oroya lays foundational principles that will likely shape the content and direction of environmental and climate change litigation and jurisprudence in the Americas. This historic judgment provides a robust basis for anticipating how the Court will handle the specification of environmental rights within the climate emergency and how it may accordingly inform States’ human rights obligations. Continue reading >>
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18 January 2024
Leading the Way
There is little doubt that climate change in all its facets is one of the most pressing global issues of our time. Increasingly, we see international and regional treaty bodies addressing it. Much has been written about ongoing procedures in front of the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). However, other regional developments, such as the African Commission’s study on the impact of climate change or the request for an advisory opinion on the climate emergency to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) have regrettably received less attention. As we have submitted an amicus curiae to the latter proceeding, we want to contribute to its prominence and present the core arguments of our intervention to the Court. In particular, we highlight the nexus between climate change and forced displacement from a complementary protection perspective. Continue reading >>
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18 April 2023
Whispers of Change (Vol. II)
Mexico’s prolonged refusal to eliminate mandatory preventive detention from its legal system has slowly but steadily contributed to the rising tension between the Mexican Supreme Court, the Mexican State, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Following both Courts’ recent decisions on the case of GarcÃa RodrÃguez y AlpÃzar OrtÃz v. México (both have recently decided cases concerning virtually the same set of facts with notoriously varying outcomes), the discussion heats as it now relates to one of the most relevant inquiries of modern constitutional study: judicial review of constitutional provisions and amendments. Continue reading >>
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07 July 2021
Strasbourg and San José Close Ranks
At the end of 2020, for the first time in its more than 40 years of jurisprudential history, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared the arbitrary dismissals of two public prosecutors to be unconventional. Not only judges but also prosecutors are increasingly subject to threats to their independence, both in Latin America and Europe, as well as in other regions. This article addresses the question of whether the same judicial guarantees apply to public prosecutors and attorneys as to judges and looks at how the Inter-American Court sought inspiration from the precedents of the European Court of Human Rights. Continue reading >>
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22 October 2020
Is there a Human Right to Indefinitely Run for Reelection?
In the next few months, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court) shall issue an advisory opinion in order to clarify whether presidential reelection is a right arising from the American Convention on Human Rights and, if so, whether it can be restricted. This article addresses one of the aspects which will probably be elaborated upon in said opinion, that is to say the inadequate use of the conventionality control with a view to modifying, by means of a judicial decision, constitutional provisions whose scope should only be scrutinized by mechanisms of constitutional creation or reform under the rule of law. Continue reading >>
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