INTRODUCTION

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has progressively defined the normative aspects of the doctrine of conventionality control in its jurisprudence. The foundational cases of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, Dismissed Congressional Employees (Aguado-Alfaro) v. Peru, and Heliodoro Portugal v. Panama were complemented in important aspects by the decisions of Boyce et al. v. Barbados, Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, Cabrera Garcia and Montiel Flores v. Mexico, Gelman v. Uruguay, Santo Domingo Massacre v. Colombia, and more recently in Andrade Salmón v. Bolivia.

The progressive development of conventionality control in the Court's jurisprudence makes it possible to say that the evolution of this doctrine has had an empirical nature. It has responded to the particular challenges that the Court identified in concrete cases, especially when it found that the existence, interpretation and/or enforcement of domestic laws were the causes of human rights violations at the State level. For this reason, the specific characteristics of conventionality control cannot be understood or evaluated either in the abstract–as a“finished”doctrine created in Almonacid–or by just looking at the foundational cases, or by just looking at the last decision where the doctrine was mentioned. It is necessary to analyze all the different elements of the achieve a proper understanding of the specific obligations derived from its existence.

The approach followed by the Court to develop conventionality control might produce uncertainty about what is the exact content of this doctrine. This condition has been a legitimate source of concern and confusion among scholars and judges. Several questions might be formulated in this sense: Is it possible to define conventionality control?