Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Ayala, Carlos --- "The judicial dialogue between international and national courts in the Inter-American human rights system" [2016] ELECD 708; in Scheinin, Martin; Krunke, Helle; Aksenova, Marina (eds), "Judges as Guardians of Constitutionalism and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 306

Book Title: Judges as Guardians of Constitutionalism and Human Rights

Editor(s): Scheinin, Martin; Krunke, Helle; Aksenova, Marina

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785365850

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: The judicial dialogue between international and national courts in the Inter-American human rights system

Author(s): Ayala, Carlos

Number of pages: 23

Abstract/Description:

Former President of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, Professor of Constitutional Law. Domestic courts must follow the track of the corresponding international jurisprudence. Therefore, there must be a responsible and respectful dialogue between domestic courts and the international court, which is the authentic and final interpreter of the rights established by the relevant treaty. This process takes place between the European Court of Human Rights and the European courts, and between the Inter-American Human Rights Court (IACtHR) and the American courts. Therefore, as opposed to horizontal interstate dialogues going on between constitutional courts and supranational dialogues occurring between international courts, this judicial dialogue is vertical since it happens between the regional international court of human rights and the national courts subject to its jurisdiction of the relevant treaty. The chapter explores different modalities of the latter type of dialogue occurring between the IACtHR and the American courts. Particular focus is on the legal techniques that enable mutual cross-fertilization between different jurisdictions. This exercise reveals, on the overall, an increasing openness of national systems towards the international system.