The 3 Regional Human Rights Courts In Context

The European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights are three supranational jurisdictions that protect human rights. This book is the first comprehensive study to compare the three regional courts. It also considers how they operate as parts of a greater whole.

This volume analyses the prospects and challenges of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples' Rights in context. The book is for all readers interested in African institutions and contemporary global challenges of peace, security, human rights, and international law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book critically examines the compartmentalised legal thinking through which cases concerning cultural and economic interests tend to be presented and decided in regional human rights courts. It proposes a number of conceptual and practical tools to allow for a more holistic examination of such cases, with the aim of delivering better justice.

At specific moments in the history of Africa, Europe, and Latin America, each region decided to create supranational jurisdictions to protect human rights. These are, in chronological order, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. While each has been the subject of important, dedicated monographs, no major study has analysed both the institutional and jurisprudential issues of all three regional systems. The 3 Regional Human Rights Courts in Context: Justice That Cannot Be Taken for Granted is the first book to offer a comprehensive comparison of the three systems. Rather than merely juxtaposing analogous features, the book considers how the three courts operate as parts of a greater, integrated whole. Similarities and differences between the courts are illuminated alongside historical, political, and sociological insights, in addition to the book's primary legal focus. Close analysis of the processes by which the courts came into being makes it clear that, regardless of distinct political, cultural, or other variances, states on each of the three continents have chafed against international supervision. The book also debunks the common belief that, after the Second World War, the thrust of human rights initiatives was so powerful that states no longer need to discuss them. Justice cannot be taken for granted—a position further supported by the book's analysis of how each court has evolved and how their rulings have been implemented. Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen's dynamism and multidisciplinary approach makes it possible to truly understand the stakes behind the institutional and jurisprudential developments of the three regional human rights courts. This is a book that will interest not only legal practitioners but also specialists in international relations, human rights, and countless other fields.

This book offers the first comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the provisions of the ‘Malabo Protocol’—the amendment protocol to the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights—adopted by the African Union at its 2014 Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The Annex to the protocol, once it has received the required number of ratifications, will create a new Section in the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights with jurisdiction over international and transnational crimes, hence an ‘African Criminal Court’. In this book, leading experts in the field of international criminal law analyze the main provisions of the Annex to the Malabo Protocol. The book provides an essential and topical source of information for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of international criminal law, and for all readers with an interest in political science and African studies. Gerhard Werle is Professor of German and Internationa l Crimina l Law, Criminal Procedure and Modern Legal History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Director of the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice. In addition, he is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape and Honorary Professor at North-West University of Political Science and Law (Xi’an, China). Moritz Vormbaum received his doctoral degree in criminal law from the University of Münster (Germany) and his postdoctoral degree from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is a Senior Researcher at Humboldt-Universität, as well as a coordinator and lecturer at the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice.

What role do human rights play in the development of regional organizations? What human rights obligations do states assume upon joining regional bodies? Regional Protection of Human Rights, Second Edition is the first text of its kind devoted to the European, Inter-American and African systems for the protection of human rights. It illustrates how international human rights law is interpreted and implemented across international organizations and offers examples of political, economic, social problems and legal issues to emphasize the significant impact of international human rights law institutions on the constitutions, law, policies, and societies of different regions. Regional Protection of Human Rights provides readers with access to the basic documents of each legal system and their inter-relationships, enabling readers to apply those documents to ever-changing global situations, and alerting them to the dynamic nature of regional human rights law and institutions. The jurisprudence of the European and Inter-American Courts and decisions of the Inter-American and African Commissions are emphasized, including decisions on the interpretation and application of various human rights, procedural requirements and remedies. Prospects for regional systems in the Middle East and Asia are also discussed. The relevant basic texts are reproduced in a documentary supplement. Together, Regional Protection of Human Rights and its accompanying Documentary Supplement provide comprehensive access to the basic documents of each legal system and their inter-relationships, enabling readers to apply those documents to ever-changing global situations, and alerting them to the dynamic nature of regional human rights law and institutions. In addition to serving as a text for courses on human rights law, the book will be useful for courses in international law, international relations, and political science. It is also be a helpful resource for lawyers and policy-makers concerned with the protection of human rights.

This book, which can be used as a text for teaching purposes, gives a fascinating, and authoritative treatment both the rights protected by the Inter-American system and of the way in which its institutions work. An important part of the book is a thorough, article by article account of the guarantee in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and in the American Convention on Human Rights of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the light of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and of the Commission's many country reports on the human rights situation in particular states. There are also chapters on the rights of indigenous peoples, amnesty laws and states of emergencies. The evolution and current methods of work of the Commission and the Court are set out at length and their achievements are critically assessed. The role of non-governmental organisations is also examined in this context. The book will be invaluable to all those interested in the protection of human rights in the Americas and international human rights law generally.

This ground-breaking collection of essays outlines and explains the unique development of Latin American jurisprudence. It introduces the idea of the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL), an original Latin American path of transformative constitutionalism, to an Anglophone audience for the first time. It charts the key developments that have transformed the region and assesses the success of the constitutional projects that followed a period of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Coined by scholars who have been documenting, conceptualizing, and comparing the development of Latin American public law for more than a decade, the term ICCAL encompasses themes that cross national borders and legal fields, taking in constitutional law, administrative law, general public international law, regional integration law, human rights, and investment law. Not only does this volume map the legal landscape, it also suggests measures to improve society via due legal process and a rights-based, supranational and regionally rooted constitutionalism. The editors contend that with the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, common problems such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population from having a say in government, as well as corruption, hyper-presidentialism, and the weak normativity of the law can be combatted more effectively in future.