The Organization of American States (OAS) is a regional organization consisting of 35 member states across the Americas.
The American Convention on Human Rights was adopted on 22 November 1969 and entered into force on 18 July 1978. This is the core regional human rights treaty between the members of the OAS.
Commentaries provide article-by-article analysis of treaties and include citations to relevant jurisprudence, preparatory works, and other documents. The following commentaries are available electronically through Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law. The complete list of titles included in this collection is available here.
You can find additional commentaries by searching on NUsearch, our library catalog, for keywords such as [name of treaty] + commentary (example: American Convention on Human Rights commentary).
The American Convention on Human Rights by
This book offers a thorough, critical, and accessible analysis of the American Convention on Human Rights which is the main human rights treaty of the Americas. The authors closely review the jurisprudence and the binding judgments of the two institutions charged with interpreting the Convention: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.They focus on the rights most developed by the Court and Commission, namely the rights to equality, life, humane treatment, personal liberty, property, due process and judicial protection, as well as the freedom of expression and reparations. They examine the case law with a victim-centered lens while identifying key jurisprudential developments, discussing critical areas that lack consistency and rigor, and proposing alternative conceptual approaches. Each chapter contains an Introduction to compare the Convention right's formulation with equivalent rights in other major international and regional treaties; a background section to consider the right's negotiation history; a Scope of Protection section to analyze the right's provisions (paragraph-by-paragraph or topic-by-topic); and lastly, a Limitations section, if applicable, to study any limitations to the right. In addition, the book's Introduction presents an up-to-date overview of the dynamic Inter-American Human Rights System, discussing the System's legal instruments, major institutions, significant impact, key developments, and current challenges.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights by
This work offers the first systematic analysis of the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to be published in the English language. The book provides a comprehensive collation and commentary on the jurisprudence of the Court, situating it in the broader context ofinternational human rights law, drawing comparisons in particular with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. It features coverage of both procedural and substantive human rights law.Comprehensively indexed and cross-referenced, the book offers for the first time in English ready access to the jurisprudence of one of the major regional human rights courts. It will be of use to the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists, government institutions, academics,and students alike.Based on an original French publication, the book has been fully updated and rewritten and includes extensive bibliographies for each of the issues and rights selected for commentary.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights monitor human rights in the Americas. The Inter-American Commission examines petitions alleging violations of the human rights guaranteed in the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, the American Convention on Human Rights, and other-inter-American human rights treaties. The Inter-American Court interprets and applies the American Convention and other inter-American human rights treaties.
To find jurisprudence from the Inter-American human rights system:
Step 1: Consult a commentary or other secondary sources to identify citations to relevant cases and decisions. See above for suggestions on how to find commentaries and the Secondary Sources page of this guide for guidance on how to find additional secondary sources.
Step 2: Use the subscription and/or free resources suggested below to search for or retrieve cases. Note that resources differ in scope of coverage, when they were last updated, and search capabilities. Note that recent judgments are often only available in Spanish.
The Inter-American Commission has created thematic rapporteurships to strengthen work on specific human rights issues (e.g., freedom of expression, racial discrimination) and devote attention to certain groups at risk of human rights violations (e.g., indigenous peoples, women, migrants).