The
Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an
autonomous judicial institution based in the city of San
José
, Costa
Rica
.
Together
with the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, it makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of
American States
(OAS), which serves to uphold and promote basic
rights and freedoms in the Americas.
Purpose and functions
The Court was established in 1979 with the purpose of enforcing and
interpreting the provisions of the
American Convention on Human
Rights. Its two main functions are thus adjudicatory and
advisory. Under the former, it hears and rules on the specific
cases of human rights violations referred to it. Under the latter,
it issues opinions on matters of legal interpretation brought to
its attention by other OAS bodies or member states.
Adjudicatory function
The adjudicatory function requires the Court to rule on cases
brought before it in which a state party to the Convention that has
accepted its contentious jurisdiction is accused of a human rights
violation.
In addition to ratifying the Convention, a state party must
voluntary submit to the Court's jurisdiction for it to be competent
to hear a case involving that state.
Acceptance of
contentious jurisdiction can be given on a blanket basis – to date,
Argentina
, Barbados
, Bolivia
, Brazil
, Chile
, Colombia
, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic
, Ecuador
, El Salvador
, Guatemala
, Haiti
, Honduras
, Mexico
, Nicaragua
, Panama
, Paraguay
, Peru
, Suriname
, Uruguay
, and
Venezuela
have done so[43300] – or, alternatively, a state can agree
to abide by the Court's jurisdiction in a specific, individual
case.
Trinidad and
Tobago
originally signed the Convention on 28 May 1991 but suspended its
ratification on 26 May 1998 (effective 26 May 1999) over the death
penalty issue. In 1999, under President Alberto Fujimori, Peru announced it
was withdrawing its acceptance of the Court's jurisdiction, but
this was reversed by the transitional government of Valentín Paniagua in
2001.
Under the Convention, cases can be referred to the Court by either
the
Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights or a state party.
In contrast to the
European
human rights system
, individual citizens of the OAS member states are
not allowed to take cases directly to the Court:individuals
who believe that their rights have been violated must first lodge a
complaint with the Commission and have that body rule on the
admissibility of the claim.If the case is ruled admissible and the
state deemed at fault, the Commission will generally serve the
state with a list of recommendations to make amends for the
violation.Only if the state fails to abide by these
recommendations, or if the Commission decides that the case is of
particular importance or legal interest, will the case be referred
to the Court.The presentation of a case before the Court can
therefore be considered a measure of last resort, taken only after
the Commission has failed to resolve the matter in a noncontentious
fashion.
Proceedings before the Court are divided into written and oral
phases.
Written phase
In the written phase, the case application is filed, indicating the
facts of the case, the victims, the evidence and witnesses the
applicant plans to present at trial, and the claims for redress and
costs.If the application is ruled admissible by the Court's
secretary, notice thereof is served on the judges, the state or the
Commission (depending on who lodged the application), the victims
or their next-of-kin, the other member states, and OAS
headquarters.
For 30 days following notification, any of the parties in the case
may submit a
brief containing
preliminary objections to the application.If it deems necessary,
the Court can convene a hearing to deal with the preliminary
objections.Otherwise, in the interests of procedural economy, it
can deal with the parties' preliminary objections and the merits of
the case at the same hearing.
Within 60 days following notification, the respondent must supply a
written answer to the application, stating whether it accepts or
disputes the facts and claims it contains.
Once this answer has been submitted, any of the parties in the case
may request the Court president's permission to lodge additional
pleadings prior to the commencement of the oral phase.
Oral phase
The president sets the date for the start of oral proceedings, for
which the Court is considered quorate with the presence of five
judges.
During the oral phase, the judges may ask any question they see fit
of any of the persons appearing before them. Witnesses, expert
witnesses, and other persons admitted to the proceedings may, at
the president's discretion, be questioned by the representatives of
the Commission or the state, or by the victims, their next-of-kin,
or their agents, as applicable. The president is permitted to rule
on the relevance of questions asked and to excuse the person asked
the question from replying, unless overruled by the Court.
After hearing the witnesses and experts and analyzing the evidence
presented, the Court issues its judgment.Its deliberations are
conducted in private and, once the judgment has been adopted, it is
notified to all the parties involved.If the merits judgment does
not cover the applicable reparations for the case, they must be
determined at a separate hearing or through some other procedure as
decided on by the Court.
The reparations the Court orders can be both monetary and
nonmonetary in nature.The most direct form of redress are cash
compensation payments extended to the victims or their next-of-kin.
However, the state can also be required to grant benefits in kind,
to offer public recognition of its responsibility, to take steps to
prevent similar violations occurring in the future, and other forms
of nonmonetary compensation.
For example, in its November 2001 judgment in the
Barrios Altos case [43301]– dealing with the massacre in Lima
, Peru, of 15
people at the hands of the state-sponsored Colina Group death
squad in November 1991 –the Court ordered payments of
USD $175,000 for the four
survivors and for the next-of-kin of the murdered victims and a
payment of $250,000 for the family of one of the victims.It also
required Peru to grant the victims' families free health care and
various forms of educational support, including scholarships and
supplies of school uniforms, equipment, and books;to repeal two
controversial amnesty laws;to establish the crime of extrajudicial
killing in its domestic law;to ratify the
International Convention on the Nonapplicability of Statutory
Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity;to
publish the Court's judgment in the national media;to publicly
apologize for the incident and to undertake to prevent similar
events from recurring in the future;and to erect a memorial
monument to the victims of the massacre.
While the Court's decisions admit no appeal, parties can lodge
requests for interpretation with the Court secretary within 90 days
of judgment being issued. When possible, requests for
interpretation are heard by the same panel of judges that ruled on
the merits.
Advisory function
The Court's advisory function enables it to respond to
consultations submitted by OAS agencies and member states regarding
the interpretation of the Convention or other instruments governing
human rights in the Americas; it also empowers it to give advice on
domestic laws and proposed legislation, and to clarify whether or
not they are compatible with the Convention's provisions. This
advisory jurisdiction is available to all OAS member states, not
only those that have ratified the Convention and accepted the
Court's adjudicatory function. The Court's replies to these
consultations are published separately from its contentious
judgments, as
advisory
opinions.
Composition
As stipulated by Chapter VIII of the
Convention, the Court
consists of seven judges of the highest moral authority from the
Organization's member states.They are elected to six-year terms by
the
OAS
General Assembly and may be reelected for one additional
six-year period.
No state may have two judges serving on the Court at any one time,
although– unlike the commissioners of the Inter-American
Commissionjudges are not required to recuse themselves from hearing
cases involving their home countries.In fact, a state party
appearing as a defendant that does not have one of its nationals
among the Court's judges is entitled, under Art. 55 of the
Convention, to appoint an
ad hoc judge to serve on the
bench hearing the case.
After the
Convention came into force on 18 July
1978, the first election of judges took place
on 22 May 1979, and the
new Court convened for the first time on 29
June 1979 at OAS headquarters in Washington,
D.C.
, United
States
.
Current Judges
The Court's membership in January 2008 stood as follows:
Past Judges
Cases heard by the Inter-American Court
See also
External links
(Suriname) [43307]
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