Assessing the evolution of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the protection of migrants’ rights: past, present and future

ABSTRACT

The article contributes a critical analysis of the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), reviewing the protection of migrants’ rights in the Inter-American Human Rights System. Specifically, the article’s aim is to scrutinise the possible constraints upon growth as regards the role played by the IACtHR. It examines the main drivers behind the evolution of the case law and the key principles laid down in emblematic cases with a view to answering this question. The article also discusses the articulation of a judicial dialogue between the IACtHR and its European counterpart, which has developed the jurisprudence on both sides. Evidence demonstrates that the IACtHR is being innovative in creating its own authentic judicial dialogue with national constitutional courts. Other regional human rights systems, such as the African system, could learn from this. Finally, the article identifies the success and the pitfalls in the approach taken to protect migrants’ rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrants’ rights
• Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
• European Court of Human Rights
• judicial dialogue
• refugees and asylum seekers’ rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Dr Belen Olmos Giupponi is a Senior Lecturer in EU and International Law at Liverpool Hope University. She has a PhD. in International Law from the University Carlos III of Madrid (2004 – Summa Cum Laude); LLM in Human Rights (University Carlos III of Madrid). Prior to joining Liverpool Hope University, Dr Olmos Giupponi was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Stirling (2013–2016). From 2010 until 2013, she was an Associate Professor of EU and International Law at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid and, previously, a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute (2007–2009).

Notes

1 American Convention on Human Rights, signed on 22 November 1969, in force since 18 July 1978. As of 9 August 2016, of the 35 states which make up the OAS, 23 are parties to the ACHR and 21 have accepted the Court’s jurisdiction. This article summarises and develops the outcomes of the research project carried out at the European University Institute (EUI) in 2007–2009. Previous versions of the article were presented at the Advanced Seminar on International Human Rights Law organised in autumn 2007 and at the Max Weber lecture ‘What Rights Are Illegal Migrants Entitled To?’ held in February 2008. I am thankful to Professor Francesco Francioni for his mentorship and Professor Pierre M. Dupuy for his comments. Sections 3 and 4 develop the ideas put forward in the EUI Working Paper 2009/03 ‘The Rights of Undocumented Migrants in the Light of Recent International Practice in Europe and America’ and were discussed at the Seminar ‘Who Believes in the Human Rights of Migrants’ convened by Marie Dembour and Tobias Kelly on 7–8 May 2009 at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Oñati (Spain). I would like to thank Professor Cesare Romano, the Loyola Law Clinic and the colleagues involved in the presentation of the amicus in Nagede Dorzema and Professor Eyal Benvenisti for hosting me at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (University of Cambridge) from April–June 2016. All errors remain mine.

2 IACtHR, Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, Judgment of 29 July 1988. Dinah Shelton, ‘The Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, American University International Law Review 10, no. 1 (1996): 333.

3 Protocol of San Salvador on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed on 17 November 1988, in force since 16 November 1999. Shelton, ‘The Jurisprudence’, 334.

4 The terms have different meanings and imply different legal regimes. As for refugees, defined as ‘people fleeing conflict or persecution’ they are protected by the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol which constitute the main legal framework as well as other regional instruments such as the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention or the 1984 OAS Cartagena Declaration on Refugees. Migrants are people who ‘choose to move not because of a direct threat of persecution or death, but mainly to improve their lives by finding work, or in some cases for education, family reunion, or other reasons’ and are protected by customary international law and regional human rights instruments. See UNHCR, ‘“Refugee” or “Migrant” – Which is Right?’, http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2016/7/55df0e556/unhcr-viewpoint-refugee-migrant-right.html. In turn, the International Convention on Migrant Workers defines a migrant worker as ‘a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national’ (art 2.1).

5 Tania Groppi and Anna Maria Lecis Cocco-Ortu, ‘Las referencias recíprocas entre la Corte Europea y la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: ¿de la influencia al diálogo?’, Revista de Derecho Político 91 (2014): 183. See Lucas Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Expansionism at the Service of the Unity of International Law’, European Journal of International Law 21, no. 3 (2010): 585.

6 The literature on the Inter-American System of Human Rights is abundant, for an overview of the Inter-American Court of Human Right see generally Jo Pasqualucci, The Practice and Procedure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

7 IACHR, Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Approved by the Commission at its 137th regular period of sessions, held from 28 October to 13 November 2009, and modified on 2 September 2011 and during the 147th Regular Period of Sessions, held from 8 to 22 March 2013, for entry into force on 1 August 2013.

8 The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man was adopted by the Ninth International Conference of American States in 1948.

9 Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen and Amaya Ubeda de Torres, The Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Case Law and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), at 11.

10 Fabián Salvioli, ‘Un análisis desde el principio pro persona, sobre el valour jurídico de las decisiones de la Comisión Interamericana de derechos humanos’, in En defensa de la Constitución: libro homenaje a Germán Bidart Campos (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediar, 2003), 143–55. See also Mónica Pinto, ‘The Role of the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights in the Protection of Human Rights: Achievements and Contemporary Challenges’, Human Rights Brief 20 (2013): 34.

11 Protocol No. 16 to the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed on 2 October 2013.

12 ACHR, article 61.1: ‘Only the States Parties and the Commission shall have the right to submit a case to the Court.’

13 Advisory Opinion 1/82, Otros tratados, 24 September 1982.

14 Shelton, ‘The Jurisprudence’, at 333–72.

15 See the early landmark cases: Viviana Gallardo, Advisory Opinion 101/81 (1984); Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras (n. 2); Godínez Cruz, Judgment of 20 January 1989; Fairén Garbi and Solís Corrales, Judgment of 15 March 1989.

16 Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation’, 490.

17 Burgorgue-Larsen and Ubeda de Torres, ‘The Inter-American Court’, at 11 and 19.

18 IACtHR, Tradesmen v. Colombia, Judgment of 5 July 2004 at para. 173. See also Luigi Crema, ‘Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation(s)’, European Journal of International Law 21, no. 3 (2010): 681.

19 Viviana Gallardo, para. 16.

20 Pasqualucci, The Practice and Procedure, 12.

21 Gerald L. Neuman, ‘Import, Export, and Regional Consent in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, European Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (2008): 101, at 102.

22 Ibid., 108.

23 Ibid.

24 Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘A Typology of Transjudicial Communications’, University of Richmond Law Review 29 (1994): 99. See, also, Groppi and Lecis Cocco-Ortu, ‘Las referencias recíprocas’, 183.

25 María Belén Olmos Giupponi, ‘Avances recientes del Sistema Interamericano en la protección de los derechos de los migrantes’, Revista de derecho migratorio y extranjería 24 (2010): 249–74.

26 Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, When Humans Become Migrants. Study of the European Court of Human Rights with an Inter-American Counterpoint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 5.

27 Ibid., 7.

28 Ariel Dulitzky, ‘La aplicación de los tratados sobre derechos humanos por los tribunales locales: un estudio comparado’, in La Aplicación de los Tratados sobre Derechos Humanos por los tribunales locales, ed. Abregú and Courtis (Buenos Aires: Del Puerto, 2004), 33.

29 Eduardo Ferrer Mc Gregor, ‘Interpretación conforme y control difuso de convencionalidad. El nuevo paradigma para el juez mexicano’, Estudios Constitucionales 9, no. 2 (2011): 531–622.

30 IACHR, Control de Convencionalidad, Cuadernillo de Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos N° 7 (San Jose: IACtHR 2015). http://www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/r33825.pdf. See Ariel Dulitzky, ‘An Inter-American Constitutional Court? The Invention of the Conventionality Control by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, Texas International Law Journal Volume 50, no. 1 (2015): 46.

31 IACtHR, Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, Judgment of 26 September 2006.

32 Eyal Benvenisti and George W. Downs, ‘National Courts, Domestic Democracy, and the Evolution of International Law’, EJIL 20, no. 1 (2009): 59–72, at 65.

33 On the ECtHR margin of appreciation doctrine see Andrew Legg, The Margin of Appreciation in International Human Rights Law. Deference and Proportionality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). The doctrine was preceded by the Lawless case and geared in Handyside.

34 Benvenisti and Down, ‘National Courts, Domestic Democracy’, 70.

35 Neuman, ‘Import, Export, and Regional Consent’, 103. To support his arguments, Neuman mentions cases such as the Five Pensioners Case, Judgment of 28 February 2003, paras 146–8 (rejecting the commission’s claim that reduction in pensions violated ACHR Article 26).

36 OAS Resolution 1/2013 – Reform of the Rules of Procedure, Policies and Practices.

37 IACHR, Rules of Procedure, article 25. 5. ‘Prior to the adoption of precautionary measures, the Commission shall request relevant information to the State concerned, except where the immediacy of the threatened harm admits of no delay.’

38 Clara Burbano Herrera, Provisional Measures in the Case Law of the Inter American Court of Human Rights (Cambridge: Intersentia, 2010); Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, ‘Process for Strengthening the IACHR: Methodology’, 8 April 2012. http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/docs/pdf/PosicionFortalecimientoENG.pdf (accessed 12 August 2016).

39 IACHR, Rules of Procedure, article 25.

40 Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF), The Reform of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2014), Special Issue Number 19.

41 Diego Garcia-Lemos, ‘Venezuela’s Denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights’, ASIL Insights 17, no. 1 (2013). http://www.asil.org/insights/volume/17/issue/1/venezuelas-denunciation-american-convention-human-rights (accessed 12 August 2016).

42 See, for instance, IACtHR, AO 18/2003; Andrea Bianchi, ‘Human Rights and the Magic of Jus Cogens’, European Journal of International Law 19, no. 3 (2008): 491.

43 IACtHR, AO 18/03 and AO 21/14.

44 Eric Engle, ‘Third Party Effect of Fundamental Rights (Drittwirkung)’, Hanse Law Review 5, no. 2 (2009): 165.

45 Pasqualucci, The Practice and Procedure, 5. More from a socio-legal perspective based on the observation of practices, see Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, ‘When Humans Become Migrants’.

46 Cantor and Barichello, ‘The Inter-American Human Rights System’, 689–706.

47 Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, Derechos humanos de migrantes, refugiados, apátridas, víctimas de trata de personas y desplazados internos: Normas y Estándares del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, 31 December 2015.

48 Ibid., at para. 32.

49 Francisco Rivera Juaristi, ‘The Amicus Curiae in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (1982–2013)’, 1 August 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2488073.

50 Charles Moyer, ‘The Role of Amicus Curiae in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, in La Corte Inter-americana de Derechos Humanos: Estudios y Documentos (San Jose: IACtHR, 1986).

51 See IACtHR, AO 18/03, Juridical Condition and Rights of the Undocumented Migrants, 17 September 2003.

52 AO 18/03, at para. 4.

53 Ibid., II. Proceeding before the Court, at paras 7–31.

54 The factual background of the request is also the United Supreme Court decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB issued in March 2002.

55 See Beth Lyon, ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Defines Unauthorized Migrant Workers’ Rights for the Hemisphere: A Comment on Advisory Opinion 18’, New York University Review of Law & Social Change 28 (2004): 595.

56 IACtHR, Advisory Opinion OC-21/14, Rights and Guarantees of Children in the Context of Migration and/or in Need of International Protection, 19 August 2014. http://www.refworld.org/docid/54129c854.html (accessed 12 August 2016).

57 See IACtHR, AO 21/14, at para. 1.

58 IACtHR, AO 21/14 at para. 19, 23.

59 Eyal Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards’, New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 31, no. 4 (1999): 843, 890. Manuel Núñez Poblete and Paola Acosta Alvarado, El margen de apreciación en el sistema interamericano de derechos humanos: proyecciones regionales y nacionales (México: Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, 2012).

60 Manuel Núñez Poblete, ‘Sobre la doctrina del margen de apreciación nacional. La experiencia latinoamericana confrontada y el thelos constitucional de una técnica de adjudicación del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos’, in Núñez Poblete and Acosta Alvarado, El margen de apreciación en el sistema interamericano at 12 and 13.

61 Cristián Delpiano Lira and Jorge Quindimil López, ‘La protección de los derechos humanos en Chile y el margen de apreciación nacional: fundamentos jurídicos desde la consolidación democrática’, in Núñez Poblete and Acosta Alvarado, El margen de apreciación en el sistema interamericano, 155.

62 IACtHR, AO 18/03.

63 IACtHR, Provisional Measures of Protection, Resolution of 18 August 2000.

64 However, as Pasqualucci underlines, the Court’s position in this case ‘was more restrictive than its prior practice would support’. See Pasqualucci, The Practice and Procedure, 306.

65 IACtHR, Nadege Dorzema et al. v. Dominican Republic, Judgment of 24 October 2012 (Merits, reparations and costs).

66 Ibid., at para. 178.

67 Ibid., at para. 280.

68 Ibid. See also AO Status and Human Rights of the Child, at para. 72.

69 Ibid., at para. 279.

70 Ibid., at para. 101.

71 Ibid., at para. 173.4.

72 Ibid., at para. 109.

73 Ibid., at para. 157.

74 Three different tests on non-discrimination and equality before the law were proposed to the Court to analyse the questions: a fundamental rights analysis, a tiered scrutiny analysis and unitary balancing analysis. Lyon, ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Defines Unauthorized Migrant Workers’ Rights for the Hemisphere’, at 573–8.

75 Ibid., at 591–3.

76 IACtHR, Case of Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v. Dominican Republic (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment of 28 August 2014.

77 Ibid.

78 Erika de Wet, ‘Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes’, in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, ed. D. Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 541–61.

79 See the discussion in Michael Byers, ‘Conceptualizing the Relationship between Jus Cogens and Erga Omnes Rules’, Nordic Journal of International Law 66 (1997): 229, 239.

80 de Wet, ‘Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes’, 541–61.

81 Ibid., at 560.

82 See Geoff Gilbert in Erika De Wet and Jure Vidmar, Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 186. The ECHR has affirmed the absolute nature of Art. 3 in various cases, such as Chahal v. United Kingdom (1996) V, no. 22. On that occasion, the Strasbourg Court emphasised that: ‘Article 3 enshrines one of the most fundamental values of democratic society (…) even in those circumstances, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, irrespective of the victim’s conduct (…) Article 3 makes no provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under Art. 15 even in the event of a public emergency.’

83 Art. 33, 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

84 The 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol have been reinforced by the adoption of other international instruments such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), which provides in Art. 3.1 that ‘No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.’ For the Americas, see the American Convention on Human Rights (1969), Art. 22.7/22.8 and 1984 Cartagena Declaration on the rights of refugees. For Africa, see the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) Art. 12 and 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems.

85 See G.S. Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and the UNHCR’s submission to the European Court of Human Rights in the Case T.I. v. the United Kingdom, ECHR, admissibility decision of 7 March 2000.

86 See M. Foster, ‘Protection Elsewhere: The Legal Implications of Requiring Refugees to Seek Protection in Another State’, Michigan Journal of International Law 28 (2007): 250–61.

87 On the protection of asylum seekers, see, among others, J. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees Under International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 75–83 and 147–53; Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Refugee in International Law’; and G.S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Dynamic of International Refugee Law’, International Journal of Refugee Law 25 (2013): 651–66.

88 Cantor and Barichello, ‘The Inter-American Human Rights System’, 692.

89 Case of Vélez Loor v. Panama, Judgment of 23 November 2010 (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), at para. 97.

90 Ibid.

91 The case concerned the deportation of a Peruvian family based on their illegal entrance into Bolivian territory.

92 IACtHR, Pacheco Tineo Family v. Bolivia, at para. 129.

93 Case of Vélez Loor v. Panama, at para. 262.

94 Ibid., at para. 3.

95 See ibid., at para. 209.

96 See IACtHR, AO OC-21/14, at paras 211, 225, 242.

97 Bryan S. Turner, ‘Human Vulnerability and Recognition’, in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, ed. D. Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 88.

98 Lourdes Peroni and Alexandra Timmer, ‘Vulnerable Groups: The Promise of an Emergent Concept in European Human Rights Convention Law’, International Journal of Constitutional Law 11 (2013): 1056–85.

99 Ibid., at para. 173.

100 Sveda Clark, ‘Child Rights and the Movement from Status to Agency: Human Rights and the Removal of the Legal Disabilities of Vulnerability’, Nordic Journal of International Law – Special Edition on the Vulnerability of Children within International Law 84 (2015): 183–220.

101 IACtHR, Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment of 8 September 2005. See IACHR, Admissibility Report No. 28/01, Case 12.819, Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosico (Dominican Republic), Judgment of 22 February 2001. This case has similarities to the case of Mubilanzila Mayeka and Kaniki Mitunga v. Belgium (Application no. 13178/03), Judgment of 12 October 2006. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/45d5cef72.pdf (accessed 12 August 2016).

102 IACtHR, Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, at para. 3. On right to nationality, see Burgorgue-Larsen and Amaya Ubeda de Torres, ‘The Inter-American Court’, 563.

103 Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation’, 598.

104 IACtHR, Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, at para. 185.

105 IACtHR, AO 17/02 on the juridical status and human rights of the child, at para. 26.

106 Ibid., at para. 166.

107 Ibid., at para. 155.

108 Ibid., at para. 2. AO 21/14. VI.

109 Ibid., at paras 82–6.

110 Ibid., at para. 261.

111 Ibid.

112 Ibid., at para. 154.

113 Ibid., at paras 180–2.

114 Ibid., at para. 114.

115 Ibid., at para. 116.

116 Reparation is the preferred international law terminology used in this section. As Professor Crawford indicates with regard to the International Law Commission Draft articles on International Responsibility, ‘remedies’ (as a direct translation from the French reme’des) has been used as an equivalent. However, ‘this approach is more difficult in general international law, a system in which there is no a priori right to a court and where the particular consequences of responsibility in a given situation will usually be resolved outside any judicial context’. See James Crawford, State Responsibility. The General Part (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) at 596–97. For an interdisciplinary discussion on reparations see Dembour, ‘When Humans Become Migrants’, at 313.

117 Claudio Grossman et al., ‘Reparations in the Inter-American System: A Comparative Approach Conference’, American University Law Review 56, no. 6 (2007): 1375–468.

118 Velez Loor v. Panama.

119 See Mark W. Janis, Richard S. Kay, and Anthony W. Bradley, European Human Rights Law. Text and Materials, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), at 889–94.

120 Ana Beduschi, ‘The Contribution of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to the Protection of Irregular Immigrants’ Rights: Opportunities and Challenges’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 34 (2015): 45–74.

121 Cecilia M Baillie, ‘Measuring Compliance with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: The Ongoing Challenge of Judicial Independence in Latin America’, NJHR 31, no. 4 (2013): 477–95, at 480. See Fernando Basch et al., ‘The Effectiveness of the Inter-American System of Human Rights Protection: A Quantitative Approach to its Functioning and Compliance with its Decisions’, SUR, International Journal on Human Rights 7, no. 12 (2010): 9–36.

122 I am thankful to my colleague Olger Gonzalez, clerk of the IACtHR, for the clarification provided on this issue.

123 IACtHR, Resolución de Supervisión de Sentencia (in Spanish), 13 February 2013. http://corteidh.or.cr/docs/supervisiones/Velez_13_02_13.doc.

124 IACtHR, Resolución de Supervisión de Sentencia, 17 April 2015. http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/supervisiones/pachecotineo_17_04_15.pdf (accessed 12 August 2016).

125 See IACtHR, cases in the stage of monitoring of compliance: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/index.php/casos-en-etapa-de-supervision (accessed 12 August 2016).

126 Ibid., at para. 37.

127 Ibid., at para. 164.

128 Michael J. Camilleri and Viviana Krsticevic, ‘Making International Law Stick: Reflections on Compliance with Judgments in the Inter-American System’, Derecho Internacional y Relaciones Internacionales (2009): 235–245 at 245.

129 Eduardo Bertoni ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights: A Dialogue on Freedom of Expression Standards’, European Human Rights Law Review 3 (2009): 332.

130 Antonio Augusto Cançado Trindade, ‘Approximations and Convergences in the Case-Law of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights’, in Le rayonnement international de la jurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, ed. Cohen-Jonathan and Flauss (Brussels: Bruylant-Nemesis, 2005), 101; Antonio Augusto Cançado Trindade, ‘The Development of International Human Rights Law by the Operation and the Case-Law of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights’, H.R.L.J. 25 (2004): 157; Antonio Augusto Cançado Trindade, ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights at a Crossroads: Current Challenges and Its Emerging Case-Law on the Eve of the New Century’, in Protection des droits de l’homme: la perspective européenne. Mélanges à la mémoire de Rolv Ryssdal, ed. Mahoney et al. (Berlin: Carl Heymanns, 2000), 167.

131 The IACtHR has often referred to several ECtHR cases.

132 See Nadege Dorzema v. República Dominicana, at paras 157 and 163; Pacheco Tineo v. Bolivia, at para. 130.

133 Council of Europe Research Report, References to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg: Council of Europe/Court of Human Rights, 2012). http://www.echr.coe.in (accessed 12 August 2016). Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy, no. 27765/09, Judgment of 23 February 2012, Grand Chamber.

134 Ángel Chueca Sancho and Pascual Aguelo Navarro, ‘Contenido y límites del ‘Ius migrandi’’, Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana 7, no. 2 (2013): 6.

135 International Law Commission, Draft Articles on the Expulsion of Aliens, with Commentaries (Geneva: United Nations, 2014), Article 9 Prohibition of collective expulsion.

136 Application nos 25794/13 and 28151/13. Judgment of 22 November 2016.

137 Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, judgment of 25 November 2013, para. 131.

138 Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Cost), judgment of 23 November 2010, para. 171.

139 The Inter-American Commission, prompted by the approval of the EU Return Directive, adopted Human Rights Resolution 03/08.

140 Gina Bekker, ‘The Protection of Asylum Seekers and Refugees within the African Regional Human Rights System’, AHRLJ 13 (2013): 1–29.

141 Ibid., at 10. See also N.J. Udombana, ‘So Far, So Fair: The Local Remedies Rule in the Jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’, American Journal of International Law 97 (2003): 1.

142 See Application 001/2008, Michelot Yogogombaye v. The Republic of Senegal.

143 Yota Negishi, ‘The Pro Homine Principle’s Role in Regulating the Relationship between Conventionality Control and Constitutionality Control’, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper 13 (2016): 1.

144 Gonzalo Candia, ‘Comparing Diverse Approaches to the Margin of Appreciation: The Case of the European and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, 9 March 2014. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2406705 (accessed 12 August 2016).

145 Dulitzky, ‘An Inter-American Constitutional Court?’, 81.

146 See the decision of the Supreme Court of Uruguay arguing the doctrine of the margin of appreciation that the Judgment in Gelman v. Uruguay had limited binding effects, Suprema Corte de Justicia, M. L., J. F. F. O. – Denuncia – Excepción de inconstitucionalidad arts. 1, 2 y 3. de la Ley no. 18.831, 22 February 2013.

147 Paula M. García Villegas Sánchez Cordero, ed., El control de convencionalidad y las cortes nacionales. La perspectiva de los jueces mexicanos (Mexico: Porrúa, 2013), at 30–9.

148 The Dominican Constitutional Court criticised the Yean and Bosico judgment, relying on article 46 of the VCLT; Tribunal Constitucional de República Dominicana, TC/0256/14, 4 November 2014.

149 The Brazilian Supreme Court took a restrictive view on the interpretation of the inter-American precedents in S.T.F., 2008/148623. See Renato Souza Dellova, ‘Considerações sobre o cumprimento da decisão da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos sobre a Lei de Anistia no Brasil’, in Rio Grande, ed. Âmbito Jurídico (2013): XVI 109.

150 Pasqualucci, The Practice and Procedure, 528.

151 Ibid.

152 On the definition and relationships between the concepts of jus cogens and erga omnes nomrs, see, amongst others, Thomas Weatherall, Jus Cogens: International Law and Social Contract (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), at 11 and 12; and Erika de Wet, ‘Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes’, in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, ed. D. Shelton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 541–61. See Erika De Wet and Jure Vidmar, Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

153 IACtHR, AO 18/03, at para. 85.

154 Ibid., at para. 226.

155 Bianchi, ‘Human Rights and the Magic’, 506.

156 AO 21/14, at para. 224.

157 Ibid., at para. 225.

158 Ludovic Hennebel, ‘The Inter-American Court of Human Rights: The Ambassador of Universalism’, Quebec Journal of International Law 57 (2011).

159 Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards’, 843, 890.