Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T07:55:12.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Revitalizing the Inter-American Human Rights System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2018

Heidi Nichols Haddad
Affiliation:
Pomona College, California
Get access

Summary

Chapter 3 analyzes NGO participation at the Inter-American Human Rights System and shows that the explosion of NGO access, engagement, and influence in the mid-1970s resulted from chronic underfunding of the judicial institutions combined with NGOs galvanizing around the Commission as a means to address the human rights abuses occurring throughout the region. The deficiencies of the Inter-American Commission and Court have consistently been large, including negligible funding, treaty renunciation, and hamstrung authority. In the mid-1970s, a group of Washington D.C.-based NGOs provided critical money and information to the Commission that revitalized it and allowed it to begin to document and publically shame Latin American states for their human rights records. This advocacy eventually took permanent form with the establishment of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), devoted to litigating before the Inter-American System. Prior to CEJIL’s establishment, NGO engagement centered on the Commission in Washington D.C., which left the Costa Rica-based Court without the NGO support services enjoyed by the Commission. This prompted the Court to take the unprecedented step of establishing its own NGO, the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, which supplied the Court with money and political cover during its early years.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Hidden Hands of Justice
NGOs, Human Rights, and International Courts
, pp. 84 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×