Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T19:28:22.727Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parting ways or lashing back? Withdrawals, backlash and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2018

Ximena Soley  and
Silvia Steininger
Ximena Soley*
Affiliation:
Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg
Silvia Steininger
Affiliation:
Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: soley@mpil.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper will analyse instances and threats of withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in order to assess whether those cases can be qualified as backlash. Backlash often serves as an umbrella term for any form of disagreement, hence we differentiate ‘backlash’ from closely connected concepts such as ‘contestation’ and ‘resistance’. In the empirical part of this paper, we examine four cases of withdrawal from the IACtHR or threats thereof, namely Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Venezuela. The case-studies revealed that the criticism against the IACtHR is fuelled by a combination of three conditions, namely costs of membership, the domestic political system and the domestic impact of the judgments. Ultimately, the specific framework of the IACtHR allows innovative starting points to manage state discontent, in particular the two-tiered structure, the alliance with civil society and the presence of compliance partners within the state.

Keywords

backlashpushbackcontestationresistanceresilienceInter-American Court of Human Rights
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 14 , Special Issue 2: Resistance to International Courts , June 2018 , pp. 237 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 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.)

References

Abramovich, V (2017) Comentarios sobre el ‘caso Fontevecchia’. Centro de Justicia y Derechos Humanos UNLa, 17 February. Available at http://ijdh.unla.edu.ar/advf/documentos/2017/02/58ab010a10d4c.pdf (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Alter, KJ (2014) The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Alter, KJ, Gathii, JT and Helfer, LR (2016 a) Backlash against international courts in west, east and southern Africa: causes and consequences. European Journal of International Law 27, 293–328.Google Scholar
Alter, KJ, Helfer, LR and Madsen, MR (2016 b) How context shapes the authority of international courts. Law and Contemporary Problems 79, 1–36.Google Scholar
Bogdandy, A and Venzke, I (2012) In whose name? An investigation of international courts’ public authority and its democratic justification. European Journal of International Law 23, 7–41.Google Scholar
Bogdandy, A and Venzke, I (2014) In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bogdandy, A, Dann, P and Goldmann, M (2010) Developing the publicness of public international law: towards a legal framework for global governance activities. In von Bogdandy, A, Wolfrum, R, von Bernstorff, J, Dann, P and Goldmann, M (eds), The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions. Advancing International Institutional Law. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Burgorgue-Larsen, L and Úbeda de Torres, A (2011) The Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Case Law and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cançado Trindade, AA (2001 a) El Perú y la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos – Una Evaluación Histórica (Part I). Ideele – Revista del Instituto de Defensa Legal 138, 108–113.Google Scholar
Cançado Trindade, AA (2001 b) El Perú y la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos – Una Evaluación Histórica (Part II). Ideele – Revista del Instituto de Defensa Legal 139, 85–88.Google Scholar
Caron, D and Shirlow, E (2016) Unpacking the complexities of backlash and identifying its unintended consequences, EJIL:Talk! 25 August. Available at https://www.ejiltalk.org/unpacking-the-complexities-of-backlash-and-identifying-its-unintended-consequences/ (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Caserta, S and Cebulak, P (2018) The limits of international adjudication: authority and resistance of regional economic courts in times of crisis. International Journal of Law in Context 14, 83–101.Google Scholar
Cassel, D (1999) Peru withdraws from the court: will the inter-American human rights system meet the challenge? Human Rights Law Journal 20, 167–175.Google Scholar
Cassel, D (2013) Regional human rights systems and state pushback: the case of the inter-American human rights system (2011–2013). Human Rights Law Journal 33, 1–10.Google Scholar
Cassel, D (2014) The perfect storm: count and balance. Aportes DPLF 19, 20–24.Google Scholar
Cetra, R and Nascimiento, J (2016) Counting coins: funding the inter-American human rights system. In The Inter-American Human Rights System: Changing Times, Ongoing Challenges. Washington, DC: Due Process of Law Foundation, pp. 53–94.Google Scholar
Chayes, A and Chayes, A (1993) On compliance. International Organization 47, 175–205.Google Scholar
Contesse, J (2017) Judicial backlash in inter-American human rights law? International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog, 2 March. Available at http://www.iconnectblog.com/2017/03/judicial-backlash-interamerican/ (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Contesse, J (forthcoming, 2018) The international authority of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: a critique of the conventionality control doctrine, International Journal of Human Rights.Google Scholar
De Wilde, P (2011) No polity for old politics? A framework for analyzing the politicization of European integration. Journal of European Integration 33, 559–575.Google Scholar
Deitelhoff, N and Z Lisbeth (2013) Things we lost in the fire: how different types of contestation affect the validity of international norms. PRIF Working Papers 18, 1–17.Google Scholar
Dulitzky, A (2013) Too little, too late: the pace of adjudication of the inter-American commission on human rights. Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review 35, 131–208.Google Scholar
Erdmann, G et al. (2013) International cooperation of authoritarian regimes: toward a conceptual framework. GIGA Working Papers 229, 4–33.Google Scholar
Feria Tinta, M (2000) Individual human rights v. state sovereignty: the case of Peru's withdrawal from the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Leiden Journal of International Law 13, 985–996.Google Scholar
Ferrer Mac-Gregor, E (2017) The conventionality control as a core mechanism of the Ius Constitutionale Commune. In von Bogdandy, A, Ferrer Mac-Gregor, E, Morales-Antoniazzi, M and Piovesan, F (eds), Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Emergence of New Ius Commune. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 321–336.Google Scholar
Franck, TM (1990) The Power of Legitimacy among Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gargarella, R (2017) La Corte Suprema y los alcances de las decisiones de la Corte Interamericana. Seminario de Teoría Constitucional y Filosofía Política, 15 February. Available at http://seminariogargarella.blogspot.com/2017/02/la-corte-suprema-y-los-alcances-de-las.html (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Góngora Mera, M (2011) Inter-American Judicial Constitutionalism: On the Constitutional Rank of Human Rights Treaties in Latin America through National and Inter-American Adjudication. San José: Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.Google Scholar
Habermas, J (1998) Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, EM, Mansfield, ED and Pevehouse, JC (2008) Democratization and human rights regimes. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jon_Pevehouse/publication/228479709_Democratization_and_Human_Rights_Regimes/links/0deec528bda78d85a9000000.pdf (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Hathaway, OA (2002) Do human rights treaties make a difference? Yale Law Journal 111, 1935–2042.Google Scholar
Held, D (1995) Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Helfer, L (2002) Overlegalizing human rights: international relations theory and the commonwealth Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes. Columbia Law Review 102, 1832–1911.Google Scholar
Helfer, L and Alter, KJ (2013) Legitimacy and lawmaking: a tale of three international courts. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 14, 479–503.Google Scholar
Helfer, L and Slaughter, A-M (2005) Why states create international tribunals: a response to Professors Posner and Yoo. California Law Review 93, 899–956.Google Scholar
Huneeus, A (2011) Courts resisting courts: lessons from the Inter-American Court's struggle to enforce human rights. Cornell International Law Journal 44, 493–533.Google Scholar
Huneeus, A (2012) Venezuela's exit from the Inter-American Court. International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog, 15 October. Available at http://www.iconnectblog.com/2012/10/venezuelas-exit-from-the-inter-american-court/ (accessed 6 March 2018).Google Scholar
Krisch, N (2016) The Backlash against International Courts. Verfassungsblog, 16 December. Available at http://verfassungsblog.de/backlash-international-courts-2/ (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Leach, P and Donald, A (2015) Russia defies Strasbourg: is contagion spreading? EJIL:Talk! 19 December. Available at https://www.ejiltalk.org/russia-defies-strasbourg-is-contagion-spreading/ (accessed 22 December 2017).Google Scholar
Lipset, SM and Raab, E (1973) The Politics of Unreason: 1791–1970. New York: Harper Row.Google Scholar
Madsen, MR (2016) The challenging authority of the European Court of Human Rights: from Cold War legal diplomacy to the Brighton Declaration and backlash. Law and Contemporary Problems 79, 141–178.Google Scholar
Madsen, MR, Cebulak, P and Wiebusch, M (2018) Backlash against international courts: explaining the forms and patterns of resistance to international courts. International Journal of Law in Context 14, 5–28.Google Scholar
Malarino, E (2012) Judicial activism punitivism and supranationalisation: illiberal and antidemocratic tendencies of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. International Criminal Law Review 12, 665–695.Google Scholar
Mälksoo, L (2016) Russia's constitutional court defies the European Court of Human Rights: Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Judgment of 14 July 2015, no. 21-П/2015. European Constitutional Law Review 12, 377–395.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, J and Shames, S (2008) Toward a theory of backlash: dynamic resistance and the central role of power. Politics and Gender 4, 623–634.Google Scholar
Mattes, M and Rodríguez, M (2014) Autocracies and international cooperation. International Studies Quarterly 58, 527–538.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, A (2000) The origins of human rights regimes: democratic delegation in postwar Europe. International Organization 54, 217–252.Google Scholar
Morse, JC and Keohane, RO (2014) Contested multilateralism. Review of International Organizations 9, 385–412.Google Scholar
Neumann, GL (2008) Import, export and regional consent in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. European Journal of International Law 19, 101–123.Google Scholar
Núñez Poblete, M and Acosta Alvarado, PA (eds) (2012) El margen de apreciación en el sistema interamericano de derechos humanos: proyecciones regionales y nacionales. Mexico City: IIJ-UNAM.Google Scholar
Oellers-Frahm, K (2017) Proliferation. In Schabas, WA and Murphy, S (eds), Research Handbook on International Courts and Tribunals. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Parra Vera, O (2017) The impact of inter-American judgments by institutional empowerment. In von Bogdandy, A, Ferrer Mac-Gregor, E, Morales-Antoniazzi, M and Piovesan, F (eds), Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Emergence of New Ius Commune. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 357–376.Google Scholar
Sandholtz, W, Bei, Y and Caldwell, K (2017) Backlash and international human rights courts. Paper prepared for the Contracting Human Rights Workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 26–28 January 2017.Google Scholar
Shany, Y (2009) No longer a weak department of power? Reflections on the emergence of a new international judiciary. European Journal of International Law 20, 73–91.Google Scholar
Shelton, D and Huneeus, A (2015) In re direct action of unconstitutionality initiated against the declaration of acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. American Journal of International Law 109, 866–872.Google Scholar
Soley, X (2017) The transformative dimension of inter-American jurisprudence. In von Bogdandy, A, Ferrer Mac-Gregor, E, Morales-Antoniazzi, M and Piovesan, F (eds), Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Emergence of New Ius Commune. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 337–355.Google Scholar
Sunstein, CR (2007) Backlash's travels. Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper 157, 1–22.Google Scholar
Tittemore, BD (2004) The mandatory death penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean and the inter-American human rights system: an evolution in the development and implementation of international human rights protections. William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 13, 445–520.Google Scholar
Weber, M (1958) The three types of legitimate rule. Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions 4, 1–11.Google Scholar
Wiener, A (2014) A Theory of Contestation. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Zürn, M, Binder, M and Ecker-Ehrhardt, M (2012) International authority and its politicization. International Theory 4, 69–106.Google Scholar