Contesse: The American Convention on Human Rights in Latin American National Courts

Jorge Contesse (Rutgers Univ. - Law) has posted The American Convention on Human Rights in Latin American National Courts (in Research Handbook on Constitutional Interpretation, Catherine O'Regan, Carlos Bernal & Sujit Choudhry eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Chapter addresses the role that Latin America’s major human rights treaty—the American Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1969, with the Inter-American Court as its main interpreter—plays in constitutional interpretation conducted by national courts. The Chapter proceeds as follows: in Part II, I describe domestic constitutional law in Latin America, focusing on both national constitutions and decisions by Latin American courts. I show that the trend, since at least the late 1980s, is one of great interdependence between domestic and international law. Consequently, international law is a key interpretive guideline to domestic courts. In Part III, I discuss the Court’s main functions—contentious, advisory and monitoring—and explain how the Court has increasingly become a crucial tool for domestic constitutional interpretation. I use the anti-impunity doctrine and the articulation of the conventionality control doctrine as key examples of this trend. In this Part, I also use the same-sex marriage advisory opinion as an instance of robust interaction between the domestic and international realms. Finally, I turn to instances of domestic judicial implementation of the Court’s judgments as another example of the Court’s influence on national courts as a constitutional interpreter.