The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Conventionality Control

Abstract

During the last six years, the IACHR based in San Jose, Costa Rica, took additional steps to ensure compliance with its decisions. In that vein, in order to pursue this and other more covert goals, it devised a brand-new tool, known as 'conventionality control,' which bore some resemblance to the judicial review mechanism sketched out by the U.S. Supreme Court in the famous 'Marbury v. Madison' decision (1803). It also had more immediate historical connection with 'control of community law; exercised by the European Court of Justice sitting in Luxembourg. Conventionality control basically compels national judges to uphold both San Jose de Costa Rica Treaty provisions and Inter-American Court of Human Rights case law, giving the IACHR the upper hand in the interpretation of human rights throughout the Western Hemisphere.