The Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Present and Future Challenges
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934410602400301 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
COLUMN
THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN
RIGHTS. PRESENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES*
Twenty-six years have passed since the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
(hereafter ‘the Inter-American Court’, ‘the Court’, or ‘the Tribunal’) was installed in
San Jose
´, Costa Rica. It now exercises jurisdiction over more than 500 million
inhabitants. During the quarter of a century that the Court has come into operation, it
has issued 150 judgements, 70 provisional measures, and 19 advisory opinions. Its
jurisprudence has been opening important new paths within the field of international
human rights law and the highest courts within the hemisphere have been taking
notice.
We should pause after this quarter of a century and ask how we can improve or,
more accurately, continue to improve the work of Inter-American Court of Human
Rights. Many ideas occur to me, ranging from ways to improve or deepen our current
jurisprudence, to improving, from an operational point of view, the jurisdictional
tasks of the Court and of the Inter-American system as a whole. In these brief lines I
will make some considerations on this last point.
1. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereafter ‘the Inter-
American Commission’, or ‘the Commission’) receives around 1,000 petitions a year.
Even though the number of claims has increased substantially with respect to previous
years, it is still very few for a region like the Americas. Today, victims of human rights
violations access the Inter-American system represented by either a non-governmental
organisation or a private lawyer. For the majority of the inhabitants of the region, the
costs for said representation are high, often precluding them from accessing the Inter-
American system for economic reasons. We must find ways to secure a more effective
access to the Inter-American System of Human Rights for the region’s inhabitants.
Regarding this issue, special attention should be given to state public defense
systems (defensorı
´as pu
´blicas) that provide free legal aid to those who seek justice
within each country. There are States in which more than 80 percent of all criminal
cases are handled by these institutions. Defensorı
´as pu
´blicas should be given the option
of taking the case to the Inter-American System of Human Rights when they find a
human rights violation in the cases they handle. A measure such as this one would
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 24/3, 375-378, 2006. 375
#Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Printed in the Netherlands.
* Pablo Saavedra-Alessandri, Registrar of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The opinions
expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the position of the Tribunal, and are solely the
responsibility of their author.
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