Admitting (to) the past: transitional justice in the European and Inter-American courts of human rights

Abstract

ABSTRACT : The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have developed divergent approaches to interpreting their temporal case admissibility criteria, despite those criteria being nearly identical on paper. This puzzling variation has important implications for the extent to which Americans and Europeans can pursue international legal recourse for human rights abuses committed during past civil conflicts and dictatorial regimes. The IACtHR has clearly established that states can be held responsible for ongoing human rights violations that originated prior to state accession to the Court. However, when victims of similar rights violations have submitted cases to the ECtHR, the Court has frequently declared their cases inadmissible. This article demonstrates that the divergent geopolitical origins of the ECtHR and IACtHR have driven the ECtHR’s narrower interpretation of its temporal jurisdiction relative to the IACtHR. Tracing this process sheds light on the conditions under which international courts can hold governments accountable for past human rights abuses in post-conflict societies.