State Sovereignty versus International Concern in Some Recent Cases of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the ‘Commission’). By comparing two recent cases that have been brought before that Court it shows how the Court tries to maintain the delicate balance between state sovereignty and the collective guarantee against human rights violations provided by the American Convention on Human Rights. The first case, that of Las Palmeras, concerns a complaint by Colombia that the Commission was overstepping its competence in applying not only human rights but international humanitarian law as well; the State won, and was confirmed in its sovereign right to accept or reject an expansion of the Commission's powers not specified in the Convention. The second case, the Case of the Constitutional Court, concerns the ‘withdrawal’ by Peru of its acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Court after this had been seised of a complaint; the State lost, and was deemed by its earlier act to have forfeited the sovereign right to withdraw its recognition of the competence of the Court, as an essential element of the system of ‘collective guarantee’ of the human rights enshrined in the Convention.