Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:22:04.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human rights courts and global constitutionalism: Coordination through judicial dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2020

WAYNE SANDHOLTZ Open the ORCID record for WAYNE SANDHOLTZ [Opens in a new window]
WAYNE SANDHOLTZ*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, Faculty of Law, Los Angeles, California
*
Email: wayne.sandholtz@usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

International courts regularly cite each other, partly as a means of building legitimacy. This study aims to show that judicial dialogue among the regional human rights courts and the Human Rights Committee has an additional effect: it contributes to the construction of a rights-based global constitutionalism. Judicial dialogue among the human rights courts is purposeful because the courts see themselves as embedded in, and contributing to, a global human rights legal system. Cross-citation among the human rights courts advances the construction of rights-based global constitutionalism in that it provides a basic degree of coordination among the regional courts. The jurisprudence of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC), as an authoritative interpreter of core international human rights norms, plays the role of a central focal point for the decentralized coordination of jurisprudence. Using original data, this study demonstrates the extent of citations among the regional human rights courts and from them to the HRC. The network of regional courts and the HRC is building an emergent institutional structure for global rights-based constitutionalism.

Keywords

human rights courtsglobal constitutionalismjudicial dialoguepolitical science
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 439 - 464
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aust, Helmut Philipp and Nolte, Georg. 2016. The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts: Uniformity, Diversity, Convergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baluarte, David C and De Vos, Christian M. 2010. From Judgment to Justice: Implementing International and Regional Human Rights Decisions. Open Society Justice Initiative. Available at <https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/judgment-justice-implementing-international-and-regional-human-rights-decisions>..>Google Scholar
Beck, Colin J, Meyer, John W, Hosoki, Ralph and Drori, Gili S.. 2017. ‘Constitutions in World Society: A New Measure of Human Rights’. Unpublished manuscript, available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2906946>.CrossRef.>Google Scholar
Binder, Christina. 2011. ‘The Prohibition of Amnesties by the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights’. German Law Journal 12(5):1203–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cançado Trindade, Antônio Augusto. 2004. ‘The Development of International Human Rights Law Through the Activities and Case-law of the European and the Inter-American Courts of Human Rights’. Address to the opening of the Judicial Year of the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg.Google Scholar
Carter, Lief and Burke, Thomas. 2016. Reason in Law, 9th ed. New York: Pearson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cichowski, Rachel. 2007. The European Court and Civil Society: Litigation, Mobilization, and Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conte, Alex and Burchill, Richard. 2009. Defining Civil and Political Rights: The Jurisprudence of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, 2nd ed. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Contesse, Jorge. 2019. ‘Resisting the Inter-American Human Rights System’. Yale Journal of International Law 44(2):179–237. Available at <https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjil/vol44/iss2/1>.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael et al. 2018a. ‘V-Dem Dataset v8’. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Available at <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325750746_V-Dem_Dataset_V8>..>Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael et al. 2018b. ‘V-Dem Dataset v8.’ Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Available at <https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-8>..>Google Scholar
Dulitzky, Ariel E 2015a. ‘An Alternative Approach to the Conventionality Control Doctrine.’ AJIL Unbound 109:100–08.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dulitzky, Ariel E 2015b. ‘An Inter-American Constitutional Court? The Invention of the Conventionality Control by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’. Texas International Law Journal 50(1):45–93.Google Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom and Simmons, Beth Anne. 2013. ‘Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice’. Harvard International Law Journal 54(1):61–95.Google Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen. 2001. ‘The New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism’. American Journal of Comparative Law 49:707–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen. 2008. ‘Human Rights as International Constitutional Rights’. European Journal of International Law 19(4):749–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen. 2009. ‘Human Rights and International Constitutionalism’. In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 233–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen. 2010. ‘Reassessing the New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism’. International Journal of Constitutional Law 8(2):167–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Góngora Mera, Manuel Eduardo. 2011. Inter-American Judicial Constitutionalism: On the Constitutional Rank of Human Rights Treaties in Latin America through National and Inter-American Adjudication. San José, Costa Rica: Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.Google Scholar
Greer, Steven C. 2006. The European Convention on Human Rights: Achievements, Problems and Prospects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Darren and Jacoby, Wade. 2010. ‘Partial Compliance: A Comparison of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights’. Journal of International Law and International Relations 6(1):35–85.Google Scholar
Helfer, Laurence R and Voeten, Erik. 2014. ‘International Courts as Agents of Legal Change: Evidence from LGBT Rights in Europe’. International Organization 68(1):77–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillebrecht, Courtney. 2014. Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals: The Problem of Compliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huneeus, Alexandra. 2011. ‘Courts Resisting Courts: Lessons from the Inter-American Court’s Struggle to Enforce Human Rights’. Cornell International Law Journal 44(3):493–534.Google Scholar
International Law Commission. 2018a. Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties. Available at <http://legal.un.org/docs/?path=../ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft_articles/1_11_2018.pdf&lang=EF>..>Google Scholar
International Law Commission. 2018b. Report of the International Law Commission on its Seventieth Session (30 April–1 June and 2 July–10 August 2018). Available at <http://legal.un.org/docs/?symbol=A/73/10>..>Google Scholar
Keller, Helen and Grover, Leena. 2012. ‘General Comments of the Human Rights Committee’. In UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy, edited by Keller, Helen and Ulfstein, Geir, 116–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, Helen and Stone Sweet, Alec, eds. 2008. A Europe of Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumm, Mattias. 2009. ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship Between Constitutionalism in and Beyond the State’. In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 258–325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, David S. and Versteeg, Mila. 2011. ‘The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism’. California Law Review 99:1163–1257.Google Scholar
Letsas, George. 2013. ‘The ECHR as a Living Instrument: Its meaning and Legitimacy.’ In Constituting Europe: The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context, edited by Føllesdal, Andreas, Peters, Birgit and Ulfstein, Geir, 106–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCormick, Neil. 1999. Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, Mikael Rask. 2016. ‘The Challenging Authority of the European Court of Human Rights: From Cold War Legal Diplomacy to the Brighton Declaration and Backlash’. Law and Contemporary Problems 79(1):141–78.Google Scholar
Neuman, Gerald L. 2008. ‘Import, Export, and Regional Consent in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’. European Journal of International Law 19(1):101–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandholtz, Wayne and Feldman, Adam. 2019. ‘The Trans-regional Construction of Human Rights’. In Contesting Human Rights: Norms, Institutions and Practice, edited by Brysk, Alison and Stohl, Michael, 107–24. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandholtz, Wayne and Padilla, Mariana Rangel. 2020. “Law and Politics in the Inter-American System: The Amnesty Cases. Journal of Law and Courts 8(1): 151–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Martin. 1981. Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloss, David and Sandholtz, Wayne. 2019. ‘Universal Human Rights and Constitutional Change’. William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 27(4):1183–1262.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec. 2000. Governing With Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec. 2004. The Judicial Construction of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec. 2012. ‘Constitutional Courts.’ In Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Rosenfeld, Michel and Sajó, András, 816–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec. 2013. ‘The Structure of Constitutional Pluralism: Review of Nico Krisch, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Post-National Law’. International Journal of Constitutional Law 11(2):491–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec and Mathews, Jud. 2019. Proportionality Balancing and Constitutional Governance: A Comparative and Global Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec and Palmer, Eric. 2017. ‘A Kantian System of Constitutional Justice: Rights, Trusteeship, Balancing’. Global Constitutionalism 6(3):377–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec and Ryan, Clare. 2018. A Cosmopolitan Legal Order: Kant, Constitutional Justice, and the ECHR. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Versteeg, Mila. 2015. ‘Law versus Norms: The Impact of Human Rights Treaties on National Bills of Rights’. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 171(1):87–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viljoen, Frans. 2012. International Human Rights Law in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voeten, Erik. 2010. ‘Borrowing and Nonborrowing Among International Courts’. Journal of Legal Studies 39(2):547–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Neil. 2002. ‘The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism’. The Modern Law Review 65(3):317–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Neil, ed. 2003. Sovereignty in Transition. Oxford, Hart.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph HH 1991. ‘The Transformation of Europe’. Yale Law Journal 100:2403–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiler, Joseph HH 1999. The Constitution of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar