Review by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and domestic reparation programmes: towards a more nuanced approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article brings new perspectives and insights to the question of which type of review the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) should adopt for remedies in cases involving a State where a Domestic Reparation Programme (DRP) has been implemented. First, it critically examines the view that posits that when the IACtHR orders remedies in the examined cases it should focus its decision on only the discrete human rights violations found in an individual case before it. To specify, this approach can be called ‘an individual case approach to remedies’. This work demonstrates that the argument that the IACtHR should limit itself to an individual case approach to remedies in the examined cases is unwarranted from a legal, analytical and normative perspective. Second, this article provides a much more nuanced approach to the question of remedies adopted by the IACtHR in the studied cases than an individual case approach and other approaches suggested for these cases. It proposes an approach where the IACtHR reviews the characteristics of the DRPs applicable to individual cases brought before it. Notably, this Court should evaluate whether a given DRP meets State obligations under the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR).