The Inter-American Court of Human Rights

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Buergenthal

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has drafted its Statute, adopted its Rules of Procedure, negotiated its headquarters agreement, and so far dealt with its first case. It is timely, therefore, to describe the Court’s institutional framework and to analyze its jurisdiction. A more extensive study, of course, will have to await its developing case law.

Author(s):  
Alain Pellet

Article 21 of the Rome Statute sets out a complex system of sources of applicable law. In addition to the Statute itself, which contains a relatively detailed list of crimes, Articles 21 includes the Elements of Crimes, a very detailed document which unnecessarily limits the scope of the crimes listed in the Statute and reveals mistrust with regard to the Court, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and the case law of the Court, despite the absence of stare decisis. In order to avoid risks of non liquet, Article 21 also refers to other norms and rules of international law. Article 21 establishes a hierarchy between the sources of law it refers to. It combines a formal hierarchy, on top of which lays the Statute, with a substantial hierarchy dominated by ‘internationally recognized human rights’ (Article 21(3)).


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Jan Sikuta

AbstractThis contribution is aiming to provide a reader with a brief overview of selected relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ("the Court"), somehow relating to the acts of terrorism. It shows the evolution of the Courts case-law from the very first case of Lawless v. Ireland, lodged to the Court in 1959, through the case of Osman v. UK, involving the positive obligation of a State to protect the life of its citizens and case of Ocalan v. Turkey, up to the case of Cetin and Others v. Turkey, dealing with terrorism and media (Article 10 of the Convention).The aim of this contribution is also to give a very brief views on the issue of terrorism from the aspects of different provisions of the Convention, starting with the Article 1 of the Convention and ending with Article 10 of the Convention, in order to provide participants of the Conference with short, but rather "plastic" picture of the Courts' case-law related to the mentioned issue.


Author(s):  
Retselisitsoe Phooko

On 2 August 2002 South Africa signed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Tribunal and the Rules of Procedure Thereof, thus effectively recognising and accepting the jurisdiction of the SADC Tribunal. Among the cases received by the SADC Tribunal was a complaint involving allegations of human rights violations by the government of Zimbabwe. It ruled that the government of Zimbabwe had violated human rights. Consequently, Zimbabwe mounted a politico-legal challenge against the existence of the Tribunal. This resulted in the review of the role and functions of the Tribunal in 2011 which resulted in the Tribunal being barred from receiving new cases or proceeding with the cases that were already before it. Furthermore, on 18 August 2014, the SADC Summit adopted and signed the 2014 Protocol on the Tribunal in the SADC which disturbingly limits personal jurisdiction by denying individual access to the envisaged Tribunal, thus reducing it to an inter-state judicial forum. This article critically looks at the decision of 18 August 2014, specifically the legal implications of the Republic of South Africa’s signing of the 2014 Protocol outside the permissible procedure contained in article 37 of the SADC Protocol on the Tribunal. It proposes that South Africa should correct this democratic deficit by introducing public participation in treaty-making processes in order to prevent a future situation where the executive unilaterally withdraws from an international treaty that is meant to protect human rights at a regional level. To achieve this, this article makes a comparative study between South Africa and the Kingdom of Thailand to learn of any best practices from the latter.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuliya Samovich

The manual is devoted to making individual complaints to the European Court of human rights: peculiarities of realization of the right to appeal, conditions of admissibility and the judicial procedure of the European Court of Human Rights. The author analyses some “autonomous concepts” used in the court's case law and touches upon the possibility of limiting the right to judicial protection. The article deals with the formation and development of the individual's rights to international judicial protection, as well as the protection of human rights in universal quasi-judicial international bodies and regional judicial institutions of the European Union and the Organization of American States. This publication includes a material containing an analysis of recent changes in the legal regulation of the Institute of individual complaints. The manual is recommended for students of educational organizations of higher education, studying in the areas of bachelor's and master's degree “Jurisprudence”.


2014 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Przemysław Florjanowicz-Błachut

The core function of the judiciary is the administration of justice through delivering judgments and other decisions. The crucial role for its acceptance and legitimization by not only lawyers, but also individulas (parties) and the hole society plays judicial reasoning. It should reflect on judge’s independence within the exercise of his office and show also judicial self-restraint or activism. The axiology and the standards of proper judicial reasoning are anchored both in constitutional and supranational law and case-law. Polish Constitutional Tribunal derives a duty to give reasoning from the right to a fair trial – right to be heard and bring own submissions before the court (Article 45 § 1 of the Constitution), the right to appeal against judgments and decisions made at first stage (Article 78), the rule of two stages of the court proceedings (Article 176) and rule of law clause (Article 2), that comprises inter alia right to due process of law and the rule of legitimate expactation / the protection of trust (Vertrauensschutz). European Court of Human Rights derives this duty to give reasons from the guarantees of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 § 1 of European Convention of Human Rights. In its case-law the ECtHR, taking into account the margin of appreciation concept, formulated a number of positive and negative requirements, that should be met in case of proper reasoning. The obligation for courts to give sufficient reasons for their decisions is also anchored in European Union law. European Court of Justice derives this duty from the right to fair trial enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Standards of the courts reasoning developed by Polish constitutional court an the European courts (ECJ and ECtHR) are in fact convergent and coherent. National judges should take them into consideration in every case, to legitimize its outcome and enhance justice delivery.


2014 ◽  
pp. 13-31
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Grzelak-Bach

Following a brief introduction of article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the author begins by analyzing case law from the European Court of Human Rights regarding the legal reasoning in judicial proceedings. The main premise of this paper is to present a formula for preparing legal reasoning in administrative court proceedings. The author draws attention to the role of judges who, in the process of adjudication, should apply creative interpretation of the rules of law, when they see errors or omissions in legislative provisions, or blatant violations of the European legal order. The conclusion of those deliberations finds, that the process of tailoring the approach to meet Strasbourg’s requirements should, on a basic level, be at the discretion of judges rather than the legislators.


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