On December 3, 2018 the Department of Legal Studies hosted a lecture by Professor Jorge Contesse (Rutgers) on the resistance and backlash the Inter-American Human Rights System has been experiencing during the past years.
Contesse argued that the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights have become widely seen as authoritative, especially by domestic courts. As a result, the Inter-American Human Rights System has recently come under fire. States in general, and their courts, in particular, have become less receptive, and at times even opposed to what they perceive as a too aggressive approach to adjudication. Contesse identified three core facets of resistance and backlash: (a) frontal backlash, which he divided into partial exit from the System (e.g. the Dominican Republic), and full exit (e.g. Venezuela); (b) Covert resistance, that States showed during the System’s 2011-2013 reform process; and (c) Judicial pushback, when national courts challenge instead of following the Inter-American Court’s case law (e.g. Argentina).
He offered two avenues of reform. First, the reformulation of legal doctrines used by the Inter-American System to mediate its relationship with the States. And second, the adoption of new mechanisms to monitor compliance with decisions of the Inter-American bodies.
Professor Jorge Contesse’s lecture was based on his article “Resisting the Inter-American Human Rights System,” Yale Journal of International Law (forthcoming 2019).