Relative authorities: constitutional reasonable resistances against Inter-American Court’s doctrines

Abstract

This article illustrates the constitutional reasoning upon which domestic courts exhibit resistance to relativize Inter-American Court’s doctrines. The San Jose Court has given constitutional reasoning in a dual dimension, horizontally the doctrine of corpus juris internacional , and vertically the doctrine of control de convencionalidad. Constitutional reasonable resistance against such Inter-American authoritative doctrines has become manifest in recent cases concerning amnesty in transitional justice, conflicting rights between private parties, and the invalidation of domestic decisions. To overcome mutual backlashes between Inter-American and domestic judges, this paper seeks their potential of a more harmonious, democracy-oriented interaction on the basis of shared constitutional reasoning.