State Sovereignty vs. International Concernin Some Recent Cases of theInter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Two of the serious conflicts between the sovereign States and the competent busybodies, which led to recent decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court), provide the material for this chapter. One, the case of Las Palmeras, concerns a complaint by Colombia that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (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 other, the Case of the Constitutional Court, concerns a chain of events in Peru that begins in April 1992, with the President, Alberto Fujimori, dissolving the Congress and the Constitutional Court, and dismissing a number of judges of the Supreme Court.Keywords: Case of the Constitutional Court; inter-American court of human rights; international humanitarian law; Las Palmeras case; sovereign states