text:
Public International Law/Human Rights Law/Human Rights Protection/United Nations Human Rights System

Author: Thamil Ananthavinayagan, Grażyna Baranowska Required knowledge:

Public International Law/History of International Law

Public International Law/Sources of International Law

Public International Law/Actors in International Law/International Organizations

Link "Learning objectives: Understanding XY."

A. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is hailed as the first document of global reach that encompassed a wide range of human rights, touching upon civil and political rights on the one hand and, on the other hand, also economic and social rights. It also set the stage for various other human rights documents to follow, such as the twin human rights convenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (ICESCR). While the UDHR is a non-binding document, some of its provisions have passed into customary international law.

In the face of the destruction caused by the Second World War – and to this end with the failure of the League of Nations – the world leaders of the post-war world assembled in New York to create the United Nations, an assembly of states to prevent the outbreak of the Third World War. At the same time, the UDHR was drafted by persons from different cultural backgrounds, such as Charles Malik, Carlos P. Romulo, Peng-chun Chang and Eleanore Roosevelt. It cannot be denied, however, that the UDHR has European origins. As Suzanne Waltz writes: “It would be foolish to deny a connection between Western philosophy and the modern notion of human rights: philosophical writings in support of human rights are easily located in the larger body of Western thought.”  In fact, the drafters of the UDHR were predominantly from the West or were exposed to Eurocentric education.

The General Assembly, dominated by Western states, adopted the Universal Declaration on 10.12.1948 and echoed the four freedoms proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter of 12.08.1941 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former President of the United States. Despite its rather elitist and hegemonic origins, the UDHR triggered a larger discussion and codification of human rights in different parts of the world, especially in the Global South amid its decolonization period. The evolving UN treaty bodies - which are expert bodies created to monitor implementation the core human rights treaties - were the result of the UDHR and will be discussed in the next section.

1.Nature and obligations of human rights
Human Rights are divided into positive and negative obligations. As mentioned at the beginning, civil and political rights predominantly invoke negative obligations upon the State to refrain from infringing on the exercise of human rights, while economic and social rights invoke positive obligations, which demand the State to act. Through it various human rights treaties, the UN human rights covers both positive and negative obligations.

2. The United Nations' approach to human rights protection
The United Nations General Assembly has given the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) the responsibility of promoting and defending the enjoyment and complete realisation of all human rights by all people. To that end, the OHCHR is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly with its resolution 48/141 to: The approaches of the United Nations human rights machinery through the treaty-based and charter-based strands will be discussed in the following sections.
 * "Promote and protect all human rights for all;
 * Recommend that bodies of the UN system improve the promotion and protection of all human rights;
 * Promote and protect the right to development;
 * Provide technical assistance to States for human rights activities;
 * Coordinate UN human rights education and public information programmes;
 * Work actively to remove obstacles to the realization of human rights and to prevent the continuation of human rights violations;
 * Engage in dialogue with Governments in order to secure respect for all human rights;
 * Enhance international cooperation for the promotion and protection of all human rights;
 * Coordinate human rights promotion and protection activities throughout the United Nations system;
 * Rationalize, adapt, strengthen and streamline the UN human rights machinery"

B. Treaty bodies & core international human rights treaties
The United Nations (UN) treaty-based human rights system is based on nine core international human rights treaties (and associated optional protocols). Each of those treaties is monitored by a committee, called treaty body.

The aforementioned UDHR triggered the creation of the prime human rights treaties, namely the ICESCR and the ICCPR. While the work initially was supposed to lead to one general treaty on human rights, the different perspective on political and economic rights led to the adoption of two treaties, each called “Covenant”: one on civil and political rights and the other on economic, social and cultural rights. The remaining core human rights treaties are called “Conventions”.

While the negotiations to adopt the two covenants were ongoing, states within the UN decided to work on a specialised treaty on racial discrimination, which was adopted in 1965, a year before the two covenants. Since then, specialised conventions on discrimination against women, torture, rights of the child, migrant workers, persons with disabilities and enforced disappearances have been adopted.

Besides the nine committees set up to monitor the core treaties, an additional treaty body was created with a preventive mandate: the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Subcommittee differs slightly from the other treaty bodies, as it created a two-pillar system of monitoring places of detention. Consequently, there are currently ten UN treaty bodies.

1. Treaty bodies’ members
The members of treaty bodies are independent human rights experts, who are nominated and elected by the respective state parties to the covenants. The exception is the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, whose members are elected by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). While treaty body members should be elected with the aim to ensure diversity, this has not been achieved yet, with regard to neither gender nor geographic representation).

The number of members in each committee varies between 25 (Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture) and 10 (Committee Against Torture, Committee on Enforced Disappearances). They serve in their personal capacity and are expected to carry out their duties impartially (see also Addis Ababa Guidelines). The UN does not pay the treaty bodies members; they do receive an allowance for the sessions, which usually take place twice a year in Geneva.

2. Treaty bodies competences
Treaty bodies are set up to monitor the respective human rights treaty. To achieve this goal, their main competences are reviewing State parties’ periodic reports and communications, as well as adopting general comments.

a) State parties periodic reports
States that have ratified a treaty are obliged to submit regularly reports to the relevant committee. Those reports are usually submitted every four years. The treaty bodies analyse the State report, considering also information submitted by NGOs and national human rights institutions. Afterwards, they discuss with State representatives each state report and adopt a non-binding document called “concluding observations”, which contains recommendations to the relevant State party. All documents submitted within the periodic reviews are available on the [https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Home.aspx#:~:text=The%20treaty%20bodies%20are%20created,reporting%20requirements%20through%20their%20secretariats. treaty body database].

b) Individual communications

Treaty bodies also have the competence to review individual and inter-state communications. This competence requires an additional approval of a state – either through the ratification of an Additional Protocol (for example the Human Rights Committee) or through a declaration by the state to the relevant treaty body (see for example the declarations to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women). Communications can concern only those states that have accepted the communication procedure. Currently, eight of the treaty bodies have the competence to review individual communications. The Committee on Migrant Workers does not yet review individual communications, as the convention requires ten states to accept this competence before it comes into force (art. 76.2 of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers). The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture does not have the competence to review communications.

Communications are reviewed by the treaty bodies, both regarding their admissibility and substance. After reviewing the case, the committees issue non-binding “views”, in which they state whether the provisions of the relevant treaty have been violated. Finally, the treaty bodies monitor whether and how states implement the views. All views of the treaty bodies can be found in the jurisprudence database.

c) Inter-state communications
Seven of the treaty bodies allow State parties to raise alleged violation of the treaty by another treaty body. The relevant procedure takes different forms:

 * inter-state communications regarding States that have declared accepting this competence of the relevant committee (Committee on Migrant Workers, Committee Against Torture, Committee Against Enforced Disappearances, Committee on the Rights of the Child),
 * setting up ad hoc conciliation commissions (Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Human Rights Committee),
 * settling disputes on the interpretation or application of the treaty (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Committee Against Torture, Committee on Migrant Workers).

Inter-state procedures at treaty bodies are extremely rare. So far, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviewed three inter-state cases: Qatar v. the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar v. the United Arab Emirates, that were suspended, as well as State of Palestine v Israel.

d) Adopting general comments
All treaty bodies adopt general comments, which explain how the respective treaty bodies interpret a treaty provision, thematic issues or methods of work. Some treaties provide for this competence within the treaty (for example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, par. 21, which uses the term “general recommendation”). All general comments are available on the treaty bodies’ webpages.

e) Other competences
Treaty bodies also have other competences that are specific to their mandate. For example, the Committee Against Enforced Disappearances’ urgent action procedure is a request from the committee to the state to immediately take all necessary measures to search for, locate and protect a disappeared person, and investigate the disappearance. Another example is the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment establishes a system of regular visits by independent national and international bodies to places where people are deprived their liberty.

C. Charter-based system
The United Nations human rights machinery, in addition to the treaty-based strand of human rights protection and promotion, has a charter-based strand. At the beginning of the United Nations, this consisted of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, replaced by its successor, the United Nations Human Rights Council. The reason for this development and replacement was the perception of the United Nations Human Rights Commission as being increasingly politicised. To this end, as it is written elsewhere: "As a binding international document, the United Nations Charter comprises international law. It is precisely, for this reason, that it was an innovation to include and give effect to compelling moral principles and political ideas of human rights. With the adoption of Resolution 5 (I) on the 16th of February 1946, the Economic and Social Council decided to pave the way for the conception of the Commission on Human Rights, which benefited from the privilege of birth, being the only technical commission and possessing the quality of an organ with statuary character."However, throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, debate arose about the human rights records of a few commission members who were widely viewed as persistent human rights violators. The credibility of the commission was seriously impacted by these incidents.

The United Nations Human Rights Council was created on 15 March 2006 by the UN General Assembly  “to establish the Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, in replacement of the Commission on Human Rights” according to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/251. The Human Rights Council has different mechanisms to ensure the promotion and protection of human rights: the Universal Periodic Review, the Special Procedures, the Advisory Committee and the Complaint Procedure. Up to now, the United Nations Human Rights Council proved to be a body of universal relevance. In the next section, the article will discuss the United Nations human rights machinery’s role aside the regional human right bodies.

D. Complementarity / competition? UN system and regional systems
In 1993, the then-Commission on Human Rights adopted several resolutions that encouraged the United Nations Secretary General to strengthen cooperation and knowledge-exchange with international and regional human rights bodies, while inviting the treaty bodies to explore ways to increase the exchange of information and cooperation with regional human rights mechanisms. To this end, the Resolution 1993/51 states that the Secretary-General is requested to continue fostering exchanges between the United Nations and regional intergovernmental organizations that deal with human rights, as called for in the medium-term plan for the years 1992–1997. The fact that the Centre for Human Rights will continue to host national, regional, and sub-regional workshops and training courses for government officials involved is also amplified. The United Nations Human Rights system, has held a range of workshops to examine how the United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms can work more closely and effectively together. To this end, the United Nations and the regional system pursue close cooperation rather than cooperation.

E. Conclusion
The emergence of an international human rights infrastructure was crucial to address human rights violations at a global scale. Human rights became a dominant force for the liberation of Third World peoples. As Anthony Anghie writes:"The international human rights law that emerged as a central and revolutionary part of the United Nations period offered one mechanism by which Third World peoples could seek protection, through international law, from the depredations of the sometimes pathological Third World state. It was for this reason that international human rights law held a special appeal for Third World scholars."The ability of State Parties to fulfill their responsibilities, the effectiveness of the treaty and charter bodies, and eventually the access to the system by rights holders—the system's true beneficiaries— is in a constant flux of development. More than ever, it is obvious that strengthening depends on choices being made by States parties, treaty bodies, and the Office of the High Commissioner within the bounds of their respective powers and in cooperation with one another. All must contribute in order for the system to work correctly. This specifically implies that individuals must make highly critical judgments. The United Nations has established a worldwide framework for the promotion and protection of human rights, generally in accordance with its Charter, legally enforceable treaties, and other initiatives aimed at promoting democracy and human rights globally. However, the human rights system still has a long way to go in a rapidly changing world.

Further Readings

 * Johannes von Aggelen, 'The Preamble of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights' [2000] 129 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y, 129
 * Philip Alston, James Crawford (eds), The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring (Cambridge University Press 2000)
 * Anna Spain Bradley, 'Human Rights Racism' [2019] 32 Harvard Human Rights Journal, 1
 * Congressional Research Service, 'The United Nations Human Rights Council: Background and Policy Issues',  accessed 26 April 2022
 * Theo van Banning et al., Human rights reference handbook,  (University for Peace, 2004)
 * Geneva Academy, ‘Diversity in Memberships of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies’, February 2018, < https://www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/Diversity%20in%20Treaty%20Bodies%20Membership.pdf > accessed 26 April 2022
 * Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan, Sri Lanka, Human Rights and the United Nations A Scrutiny into the International Human Rights Engagement with a Third World State (Springer 2019)
 * Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan, 'Uniting the Nations or Dividing and Conquering? The United Nations' Multilateralism Questioned—A Third World Scholar's Perspective' [2018] 29 Irish Studies in International Affairs, 35
 * Makau w. Mutua, 'The Ideology of Human Rights' [1996] 36 Va. J. Int'l L. 589.
 * Frédéric Mégret, Philip Alston (eds.), The United Nations and Human Rights. A Critical Appraisal, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press 2020)
 * Roosevelt Four Freedoms  accessed 26 April 2022
 * Susan Waltz, 'Reclaiming and rebuilding the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights', [2002] 23 Third World Quarterly, 437

Conclusion

 * All of these facts above do not include Women.

Women aint slick All the information above doesn't belong to them because of their bad cooking and driving skills.


text:
Public International Law/Human Rights Law/Human Rights Protection/African Human Rights System

Author: Adamantia Rachovitsa "Required knowledge: sources of international law; individuals; recurring themes in human rights doctrine" "Learning objectives: understanding the basic substantive and institutional features of the African human rights system"

This is where the text begins. This template follows our style guide. Please take into account our guidelines for didactics. If you're wondering how to create text in Wikibooks, feel free to check out our guide on how to write in Wikibooks.

A. Introduction
Although human rights were part of the agenda of the Pan-African Congress in the anti-colonial struggle prior to the independence of the African States, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963, made no reference to human rights. Instead, it emphasised decolonisation, State sovereignty and development. The language of human rights was (re)introduced with the negotiations for the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR or Banjul Charter), adopted in 1981. Subsequently, the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU), which succeeded the OAU in 2002, placed human rights values among the AU's own objectives and principles (see article 3(h) and article 4(m) respectively).

This section, first, explains the substantive guarantees of human and peoples' rights in Africa by way of selectively highlighting certain aspects of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other treaties adopted under the auspices of the OAU/AU. Second, the discussion focuses on the protective mechanisms available in the African human rights system, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as the human rights-protective mandate of certain sub-regional African courts.

I. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights
The ACHPR is not only the lighthouse of the African system of human and peoples' rights protection (with 54 State parties), but also a human rights treaty with many features that distinguish it from other regional human rights systems.

The ACHPR is the only regional human rights treaty that accords equal weight to the different generations of human rights. The text provides for most civil and political rights and a few economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to work, the right to health and the right to education, as well as peoples' rights (also known as solidarity rights). Peoples' rights hold a prominent place and include the right to self-determination, the right to dispose freely of natural resources, the right to development and the right to a healthy environment (articles 20-24). Another unique characteristic of the ACHPR is its emphasis on the duties of the individual towards the community and the State (articles 27-29). An example of such a duty is the duty of the individual to preserve and strengthen positive African values (article 29(7)). Finally, in contrast to other human rights instruments, the ACHPR does not contain a derogation clause, which means that limitation on ACHPR rights cannot be justified by emergencies.

At the same time, the ACHPR features certain notable shortcomings most of which have been addressed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACmHPR) and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACtHPR). First, the text omits certain rights (e.g. the right to privacy). Second, the ACHPR is less detailed (compared to other human rights treaties) in setting out essential safeguards with regard to, for instance, the right to a fair trial. The ACtHPR's case-law has incorporated the guarantees of the right to a fair trial under international human rights law into the protective scope of article 7. Third, the ACHPR is silent on the requirements for a restriction on a human right to be lawful. Article 27(2) ACHPR provides only that 'the rights and principles of each individual shall be exercised with due regard to the rights of others, collective security, morality and common interest' without referring to the principles of legality and proportionality. In response to this, the ACtHPR pronounced, in its very first judgment on the merits in 2013, that the restrictions imposed on human rights must conform to the three-part test under international human rights law: restrictions must be prescribed by law, serve a legitimate aim and be proportionate to the aim pursued. Fourth, the ACtHPR, by affirming the ACmHPR's practice, "neutralised" the so-called "claw-back" clauses contained in the ACHPR. A claw-back clause subjects the exercise of a right provided under an international treaty on human rights to domestic law. The ACHPR subjects the exercise of many rights, such as the right to freedom of expression or the right to political participation, to domestic law. For example, article 9(2) ACHPR reads: 'every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate opinions within the law ' (emphasis added). In contrast, other human rights treaties, do not contain such clauses. The ACtHPR ruled that domestic law ought to be in correspondence with international standards and should not nullify the scope and essence of the rights it regulates. This ruling has also been confirmed by the ICJ in the Diallo case.

II. Other Human Rights and Peoples' Treaties
In addition to the ACHPR, the African system of human and peoples' rights includes other treaties adopted under the auspices of the OAU/AU, such as

 * The 1969 Convention regarding the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa;
 * The 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
 * The 2003 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa,
 * The 2007 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance
 * The 2009 Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa
 * The 2018 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Older People in Africa.

I. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
The ACmHPR is an autonomous treaty body entrusted with the mandate of promoting and protecting human and peoples' rights in Africa. Its views and findings are non-binding but carry strong persuasive authority and have contributed to the progressive development of States' obligations under the ACHPR.

1. State Reporting
Parties to the ACHPR have the obligation to report on progress and challenges concerning its implementation every two years. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are allowed to submit non-expert reports. The ACmHPR, in its early practice, did not publish the reports submitted by States and did not adopt concluding observations. Subsequently, it changed its approach in the interest of transparency. From 2001, the ACmHPR began adopting concluding observations and publishing State reports and its own observations on its website. However, many States have never submitted a report or tend to be very late in doing so.

2. Inter-State Communications
A State party may bring a complaint concerning an alleged violation of the ACHPR against another party before the ACmHPR. This procedure has been used only once. In 2003, in Democratic Republic of the Congo v Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, the ACmHPR held that the armed forces of the respondent States committed multiple violations of the ACHPR during their occupation of the eastern province of the Congo.

3. Communications Submitted by Individuals and NGOs
The ACHPR provides that communications other than those of State parties may be submitted to the ACmHPR. Although the text does not clarify who may bring these communications, the ACmHPR accepts that individuals and NGOs may do so. According to article 56 ACHPR, a communication needs to meet certain requirements to be admissible. The author of the communication does not have to be the victim of the alleged violation. This is significant since victims may lack access to resources or awareness of their rights and available remedies, or they may be hesitant, perhaps even afraid, to submit complaints themselves. NGOs regularly make use of this broad standing, bringing many communications before the ACmHPR, which testifies to their prominent role in the ACmHPR's activities.

The ACmHPR has adopted many foundational views.

4. Other Functions of the ACmHPR
In fulfilling its mandate, the ACmHPR also exercises a number of other functions, including:

 * Creating special mechanisms, such as special rapporteurs, committees and working groups;
 * Publishing general comments, guidelines or declarations with a view to progressively developing the African human rights law
 * Carrying out onsite visits, promotional or protective missions and investigative measures on the territory of States, where appropriate.

II. The African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights
The Arusha-based ACtHPR may be the youngest court among its regional counterparts, but its jurisdiction and case law not only present unique features but also offer valuable lessons to be studied under human rights law. The ACtHPR's mandate is provided for in the 1998 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (Protocol), which entered into force in 2003, and in its Rules of Procedure. As far the relationship between the ACtHPR and the ACmHPR is concerned, they are independent and the former complements the protective mandate of the latter. In addition, the ACmHPR may submit cases to the ACtHPR.

In 2004, the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government decided that the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights should be integrated into one court with the Court of Justice of the AU, referencing financial and logistical constraints. In 2008 and 2014, the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights were adopted respectively, '''merging the two courts into a single new court, named the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. Neither protocol is yet in force and, consequently, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights is still in operation'''.

1. The Jurisdiction of the ACtHPR
The ACtHPR's jurisdiction may be divided into advisory and contentious. As far as its advisory jurisdiction is concerned, the ACtHPR may, at the request of an AU member state, any AU organ or any African organisation recognised by the AU, provide an opinion on any legal matter relating to the ACHPR or any other relevant human rights instrument. The ACtHPR has rendered 15 Advisory Opinions thus far. Turning to its contentious jurisdiction, under article 3(1) of the Protocol, the ACtHPR has jurisdiction to deal with all cases and disputes submitted to it regarding the interpretation and application of the ACHPR, the Protocol and any other relevant human rights instrument ratified by the states concerned. Thirty-four State parties to the ACHPR have currently ratified the Protocol.

The Court may receive applications from the ACmHPR, state parties to the Protocol or African intergovernmental organisations (article 5(1) of the Protocol). Individuals and NGOs do not have direct access to the ACtHPR unless the State against which the application is submitted has deposited the declaration described in article 34(6) of the Protocol, accepting the ACtHPR's competence to decide such complaints. In the absence of such a declaration, a complaint can be only submitted to the ACmHPR, which may decide to refer the communication to the ACtHPR. As of June 2023, only eight States have accepted the competence of the ACtHPR to decide complaints brought by individuals and NGOs (Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Malawi, Niger and Tunisia). Since 2016, Benin, Rwanda, Côte d' Ivoire and even Tanzania – the ACtHPR's host State – withdrew their declarations, marking an unfortunate landmark in the ACtHPR's history. However, in November 2021, the Republic of Guinea Bissau and the Republic of Niger deposited respective declarations under article 34(6) of the Protocol allowing direct access to the ACtHPR.

Pursuant to articles 3(1) and 7 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the ACtHPR enjoys a unique material jurisdiction. Its mandate extends to the interpretation and application of not only the ACHPR but also any other relevant human rights instrument ratified by the States concerned. In contrast, the material jurisdiction of UN human rights bodies and of other regional human rights courts is limited to matters concerning only their respective constitutive instruments.

The future African Court of Justice and Human Rights is expected to have a different structure and a considerably broader material jurisdiction. More specifically, it will have three separate sections: a general affairs section, a human and peoples' rights section and an international criminal law section. The AU decided to add individual and corporate criminal responsibility to the jurisdiction of the merged court. This comes as a response to the strong dissatisfaction among many African States about the International Criminal Court's (perceived) biased focus on Africa.

2. The ACtHPR's Case Law
Overall, the ACtHPR has an unfolding case-law ordering provisional measures and ruling on matters pertaining to jurisdiction, admissibility, merits and reparations. The subject matter of the cases spans across, for instance:

 * The right to political participation in connection to the prohibition of independent candidature or the arbitrary revocation of one's passport
 * The right to freedom of expression and whether criminal defamation statutes are proportionate and necessary restrictions
 * Several aspects of the right to a fair trial
 * Indigenous peoples and collective rights

State parties are under the obligation to comply with the ACtHPR's judgments. The AU Executive Council monitors the execution of judgments on behalf of the Assembly. The reality on the ground is that the level of compliance with the decisions is poor: of the over 200 decisions and judgments rendered by the ACtHPR, less than 10% have been fully complied with, 18% partially implemented and 75% not implemented at all. Certain alternative measures to ensure better implementation of the judgments are under discussion, including the introduction of a monitoring role for the ACtHPR, under a newly established Monitoring Unit, or the possibility for the ACtHPR to issue compliance judgments.

III. Sub-regional Courts Protecting Human and Peoples' Rights
Individuals and NGOs regularly resort to sub-regional African courts, established in the context of regional economic communities, to raise and litigate human rights claims.

The most active in the field of human rights is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice can hear complaints on human rights violations and applies the ACHPR as its standard of assessment. The fact that it grants direct access to individuals, without requiring them to have exhausted domestic remedies, offers a notable litigation advantage for applicants.

The East African Court of Justice does not have explicit jurisdiction to address human rights complaints but nonetheless deals with such complaints as long as they are considered to be violations falling within the scope of the East African Community treaty.

The Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) followed the approach of the East African Court of Justice, namely to address human rights claims without a clear mandate to do so. However, this choice was more politically controversial than expected and it seriously backfired. After several judgment rulings against Zimbabwe and its refusal to comply, the Tribunal was de facto suspended in 2010. In 2014, the SADC adopted a new protocol that will confine the Tribunal's mandate to the interpretation and application of the SADC treaty and protocols in inter-State disputes. The protocol is not yet in force and the Tribunal remains effectively suspended.

D. Conclusion
There is still room for the ACtHPR to develop the ACHPR's unique characteristics as well as for other human rights courts and bodies to draw inspiration from the ACHPR's features and the ACtHPR's case law. The ACmHPR and the ACtHPR continuously elaborate upon their functions and jurisdiction, respectively. They also develop the scope of rights and guarantees under the ACHPR. Although the practice of progressively elevating the level of protection for peoples' and individual's rights may be arguably linked to the backlash consisting of the four States having withdrawn their declarations under article 34(6) of the Protocol, new States have recently deposited such declarations. Consequently, States' political choices about accepting/withdrawing their declarations allowing direct access to the ACtHPR need to be assessed in light of many factors. The ACtHPR's function is undermined by the low number of States accepting its jurisdiction for complains brought by individuals and NGOs and the poor compliance record with its judgments. Despite these challenges, the ACtHPR is a resilient court addressing its increasing workload and evolving its case law.

Further Readings

 * J T Gathii (ed), The Performance of Africa's International Courts: Using Litigation for Political, Legal, and Social Change (OUP 2020)
 * C Heyns, 'The African Regional Human Rights System: In Need of Reform?' (2001) 2 African Human Rights Law Journal 155
 * R Murray, The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (OUP 2010)
 * F Ouguergouz, La Charte Africaine des Droits de l'Homme et des Peuples (Graduate Institute Publication 1993)

Further Resources

 * Documentary on the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (in English)
 * YouTube Channel of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
 * Annual Activity Reports, by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Public International Law/Human Rights Law/Human Rights Protection/European Human Rights System

Author: Jens T. Theilen "Required knowledge: Recurring Themes in Human Rights Doctrine" "Learning objectives: to understand the institutional set-up and regional idiosyncrasies of human rights protection in Europe"

A. Introduction
The institutionalization of rights in Europe has developed primarily within two organisations: the Council of Europe (CoE), with a broad range of member states extending to the east of Europe, on the one hand, and the European Union (EU) and its predecessors, the European Communities, on the other. Under EU law, the primary reference point nowadays is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was originally proclaimed in 2000 and received formal legal force in 2009 under the treaty of Lisbon (Art. 6 (1) TEU). Given the many particularities of the EU as a supranational legal order, the development and scope of its fundamental rights protection are beyond the remit of this chapter, except to note that it largely shares the market-based outlook of EU law as a whole. The focus in what follows will be on the human rights protection developed in the context of the CoE, notably but not exclusively the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms – informally known as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) whose task it is to interpret it. All 46 member states of the CoE are party to the ECHR. The EU is not, nor is it likely to be in the foreseeable future given concerns about the legality of accession to the ECHR under EU law.

I. Historical origins and development
The ECHR was the first treaty to be drafted under the auspices of the CoE and is still widely considered to be its crowning achievement. Originally a product of Western European states in the immediate postwar period, it was conceived of to prevent the backsliding of newly democratic states into totalitarianism and to provide a bulwark against the perceived threat of communism. It is also worth noting that several of the states involved were major colonial powers. With the period of formal decolonisation not yet at its peak, they acted on the assumption that they would maintain their colonial territories for a significant time yet and drafted the ECHR in such a way that it would not run counter to their interests in doing so. The ECHR thus ‘embodies in its very text the contradictions between the proclamation of universal aspirations and realpolitik interests of political subjugation’.

The ECHR was opened for signature in 1950 and came into force in 1953. From the very beginning, it has been supplemented by various protocols, which can broadly be divided into two groups. The first group, optional protocols, can enter into force despite not being ratified by all the states parties to the ECHR. According to the general principle of pacta tertiis non nocent, they are binding only on those states which do ratify them, and provide additional substantive guarantees (e.g. the rights to property, to education, and to free elections in Protocol No. 1) or procedural mechanisms for those states only. The second group, mandatory protocols, enter into force only after being ratified by all parties and amend the text of the ECHR itself. Most importantly, Protocol No. 11 to the ECHR fundamentally transformed the system of judicial oversight when it entered into force in 1998. While this system was originally conceived of as optional (and individual complaints were directed to the now-defunct European Commission of Human Rights, with the ECtHR acting only as a second instance), Protocol No. 11 turned the ECtHR into a permanent court with obligatory jurisdiction vis-à-vis all States parties – subject to the limitations of Art. 56 ECHR mentioned above. Another key change around the same time was the significant enlargement of the CoE, which generated a great deal of discussion as to whether and how the accession of many Central and Eastern European states to the ECHR should entail a different role for the ECtHR.

II. The European Court of Human Rights and its procedures
The ECtHR is composed of 46 full-time judges (still with a clear male majority despite some tepid attempts to increase the number of women ), one for each state party. The majority of applications is dealt with by individual judges, committees of three judges, or Chambers of seven judges (Arts. 26 to 29 ECHR). Particularly important cases may be decided by the Grand Chamber consisting of seventeen judges, either by relinquishment of jurisdiction by the Chamber (Art. 30 ECHR) or by referral at a party’s request after the Chamber’s judgment (Art. 43 ECHR).

The individual complaint procedure (Art. 34 ECHR) is the basis of the overwhelming majority of applications to the ECtHR. Admissibility criteria (Art. 35 ECHR) include, inter alia, the ECHR’s temporal and spatial applicability, the victim status of the applicant(s), the exhaustion of domestic remedies, and a four-month time limit (as of February 2022 according to Protocol No. 15 to the ECHR, previously six months). While seemingly of a formal nature, some of these requirements can become quite politically loaded and have generated as much case-law and academic commentary as certain substantive provisions. This goes in particular for cases involving extraterritorial jurisdiction, which often relate to politically sensitive topics such as wartime measures or migration management. But it also holds true of other admissibility criteria: for example, the ECtHR’s first climate change case (currently pending) is directed against 33 respondent states given the transnational aspect of climate change. The applicants claim that it would not therefore have been feasible to first pursue their claims at the national level in all 33 states, which raises questions as to potential exceptions from the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies.

Compared to individual complaints, inter-State applications (Art. 33 ECHR) and advisory opinions at the request of the CoE’s Committee of Ministers (Art. 47 ECHR) are significantly less common, and not more than a handful of judgments and opinions by the ECtHR have been issued in the context of these procedures. When they are used, however, inter-State applications tend to be high-profile cases, as with various cases brought by Georgia and Ukraine in the context of Russian invasions before Russia was expelled from the CoE. As of 2018, Protocol No. 16 to the ECHR, an optional protocol, allows the ECtHR to also give advisory opinions at the request of highest national courts with regard to cases pending before the latter. Protocol No. 16 is viewed by many as an important step towards strengthening judicial dialogue between national courts and the ECtHR, but it is not yet widely ratified and it remains to be seen to what extent national courts will make use of the new procedure. The ECtHR delivered its first advisory opinion at the request of a national court in 2019, on the issue of parenthood and gestational surrogacy.

III. Current discussions and future challenges
An idiosyncrasy of the ECtHR compared to other regional human rights courts is the extremely high number of cases it deals with: in 2022, for example, 45.500 new applications were allocated and overall 74.650 applications were pending. (By way of contrast, the number of pending cases before the IACtHR and the AfrCtHR does not exceed three digit numbers.) While legal analysis often focusses on ‘landmark cases’ which deal with politically sensitive topics or develop the material standards set by the ECtHR, the overwhelming majority of applications are disposed of by means of an admissibility decision. Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR, a mandatory protocol, introduced various measures to streamline the procedure for such decisions and thereby manage the case load: for example, single judges may now declare cases inadmissible (Art. 27 ECHR) and applicants must usually have suffered a ‘significant disadvantage’ for their application to be considered admissible (Art. 35 (3) lit. b ECHR). Such measures are controversial, however: there have been repeated debates over whether the ECtHR should focus on providing individual justice or take a broader, ‘constitutional’ view.

Another area of discussion, particularly in recent years, concerns the legitimacy of the ECtHR and the backlash its case-law has generated in some areas.

This has led to increasing fears that the efficiency of the Strasbourg system might be endangered if the states parties were to withdraw their support. In particular, the states parties might no longer regularly abide by the ECtHR's judgments: while these are legally binding and their execution is supervised by the CoE's Council of Ministers (Art. 46 ECHR), there is no truly effective mechanism to ensure compliance. Some states claim primacy for their national constitutions over the ECHR and use this internal legal hierarchy to prevent the implementation of certain judgments. The regular meetings of the states parties to consider possible reforms of the ECtHR, too, have increasingly focussed on whether and how the ECtHR's role could or should be circumscribed – although this has, in turn, not gone uncriticised.

Debates on how the ECtHR should respond in such a situation involve questions of judicial strategy and principle, often connected to doctrinal figures such as the margin of appreciation and the notion of subsidiarity. But these discussions also draw attention to the limits of what is considered possible within institutionalized human rights protection: if even incremental change is controversial and may draw the ire of the states parties to such an extent, then more fundamental forms of injustice are bound to go unchallenged.

C. Other Council of Europe Treaties and Documents
Human rights protection within the CoE is shaped by the ideological distinction between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights, on the other. The ECHR’s guarantees focus on the prior, although they cannot be entirely separated from the latter. Some economic and social rights, particularly various labour rights and the right to social security, are guaranteed in the European Social Charter (ESC), which was first adopted in 1961 and is gradually being replaced by a revised version of 1996. Many rights included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are notably absent at the European level: ‘private property is a right for Europeans, but food is not’. The difference in funding is a telling manifestation of these priorities: the CoE’s budget for 2021 includes over 73 million Euros for the ECtHR (not including additional funds under the heading of “effective ECHR implementation”) and a relatively meagre 4 million Euros for social rights.

These priorities are reflected in the institutional and procedural design of the European Committee of Social Rights, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with the ESC. It does so primarily by reference to reports submitted by the states parties (comparable with the reporting system in place for many human rights treaties at the global level). An additional protocol from 1995 further introduced the possibility of collective complaints, for example by trade unions and certain non-governmental organisations with consultative status within the Council of Europe. As of 2023, however, it has been ratified only by 14 states. In stark contrast to the ECtHR, there is no complaint procedure for individuals.

To round off the picture, it is worth gesturing towards the manifold other treaties developed under the auspices of the CoE, many of which can be considered specialized human rights treaties or at least touch upon human rights issues such as data protection or the legal status of migrant workers. Some of these treaties, such as the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (‘Istanbul Convention’), are equipped with a monitoring body which provides more specific but not legally binding guidance. Human rights standards may also be proclaimed, likewise in non-binding form, by various bodies of the CoE such as the Committee of Ministers or the Parliamentary Assembly. The ECtHR at times refers to these treaties and other documents as part of its interpretation of the ECHR, thus indirectly giving them binding legal force even when this was not envisaged at the time of their drafting or when they are not widely ratified.

D. Outlook
Overall, what stands out in the European system of human rights protection is the elevated position granted to the ECtHR and, with it, the focus on civil and political rights in a highly institutionalized form. This brings with it in particularly stark form all the advantages and disadvantages of institutionalizing human rights. In the European self-perception, the ECtHR is often lauded as a beacon of human rights protection, to be emulated by other regions. The ECtHR has indeed contributed significantly to the development of human rights in Europe over the years, but this assessment should not distract from the cautious and oftentimes timid stance which it tends to take in its judgments: on topics ranging from religious freedom over gay and trans rights to racial violence, other regional courts and quasi-judicial bodies at the global level have challenged injustices by finding human rights violations while the ECtHR demurred. It is important, then, to not overemphasise the achievements of the ECtHR but rather to read its case-law with a critical eye and to remain alert to other approaches to human rights, both in Europe and elsewhere.

Further Readings

 * Gerards J, General Principles of the European Convention on Human Rights (Cambridge University Press 2019)
 * Dembour M-B, Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention (Cambridge University Press 2006)
 * Aust HP and Demir-Gürsel E (eds), The European Court of Human Rights. Current Challenges in Historical Perspective (Edward Elgar 2021)
 * Heri C, Responsive Human Rights. Vulnerability, Ill-treatment and the ECtHR (Hart 2021)
 * Theilen JT, European Consensus between Strategy and Principle. The Uses of Vertically Comparative Reasoning in Regional Human Rights Adjudication (Nomos 2021)
 * Churchill RR and Khaliq U, ‘The Collective Complaints System of the European Social Charter: An Effective Mechanism for Ensuring Compliance with Economic and Social Rights?’ (2004) 15 EJIL 417

Further Resources

 * The website of the ECtHR includes various factsheets on different topics within its case-law as well as other helpful summaries.
 * There are several excellent blogs covering developments related to the ECtHR; see in particular Strasbourg Observers (providing case notes for important judgments of the ECtHR), ECHR Blog (with a wide variety of content including updates on institutional developments and new academic publications) and ECHR Sexual Orientation Blog (focussing on case-law related to sexual orientation).

Summary

 * The system of human rights protection in Europe takes place within different institutional contexts, notably the EU and the CoE. The ECHR – which primarily protects civil and political rights – is often the focus of discussions, but there are a large number of different treaties including those protecting socio-economic rights, notably the revised ESC.
 * The text and aims of the ECHR were shaped by the geopolitical context in which it was drafted. There have since been significant developments due to a growing number of states parties, additional Protocols to the ECHR and the case-law of the ECtHR. The extent to which the original historical context of the ECHR remains relevant is disputed.
 * Current discussions about the role of the ECtHR focus in particular on its unusually high workload and on maintaining its legitimacy vis-à-vis the states parties to ensure continued support and execution of its judgments. This arguably makes the ECtHR more cautious about finding human rights violations compared to other human rights institutions.


text:
Public International Law/Human Rights Law/Human Rights Protection/Inter-American Human Rights System

Authors: Verena Kahl , Walter Arévalo-Ramírez, Andres Rousset-Siri "Required knowledge: Sources of International Law; Human Rights Law Beneficial: Indigenous Peoples; TWAIL and Decolonisation" "Learning objectives: to understand the activity and the scope of the human rights protection bodies and instruments in the Americas"

A. Introduction
In April 1948, after the end of a devastating Second World War, delegates from 21 countries met in Bogotá, Colombia, to strengthen cooperation among American States. In their quest for institutionalization, they created the Organization of American States, which today comprises 35 member States. During the Ninth International Conference of American States, the first international human rights instrument of a general nature was adopted, which laid the foundation for the Inter-American Human Rights System: the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

While the Inter-American Human Rights System had thereby formally been established even shortly before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights came into being, it took several years before the system actually went into operation. An important driver of this operationalization was the adoption of the American Convention on Human Rights, a legally binding human rights instrument which established the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) as a competent organ alongside the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which had already been established by a resolution of the OAS in 1959. With regard to institutional safeguards, the Inter-American Human Rights System thus follows a twofold structure, which can also be found in the African Human Rights System and had formerly been applied in the European System of Human Rights. Besides this institutional setting, it is important to note that the Inter-American Human Righs System developed in the context of long lasting dictatorships and civil wars in the region, which also shaped the System's case law through systematic and gross human rights violations from that era, such as forced disappearance and extrajudicial executions.

In comparison to its European and African counterparts, distinguishing features include a unique system of reparations, intensive use of the IACtHR's advisory function and remarkable case law with regard to specific topics, such as indigenous communities, forced disappearance, amnesty laws or environmental rights. One of the main challenges of the Inter-American System is, besides continuous financial constraints, to find an adequate position in the balancing act between progressive human rights protection on the one hand and member State protest, which can go as far as turning away from the system itself.

I. American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man
The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (hereinafter "American Declaration" or "Declaration") was signed on 2 May 1948. Following natural law theory, the American Declaration emphasizes that "the essential rights of [a hu]man are not derived from the fact that he[*she] is a national of a certain state, but are based upon attributes of his[*her] human personality." Besides traditional civil and political rights, it also comprises economic, social and cultural rights which, for the most part, were at that time not yet part of the signatory States' national legal systems. While the Declaration is not constructed as a treaty and by its nature not legally binding, it has both been considered as a means of interpretation regarding the ACHR and the OAS Charter and even as "a source of international obligations for the Member States of the OAS." In this sense, the American Declaration has served as a yardstick in cases before the IACHR regarding those American countries that have not ratified the ACHR.

II. American Convention on Human Rights
The American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), also called the "Pact of San José", was adopted during the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights, which took place in 1969 in San José, Costa Rica. Pursuant to Art. 74(2), the ACHR entered into force in 1978. Currently, 24 States have ratified the ACHR. In 1998, Trinidad and Tobago denounced the Convention. Venezuela, which had also presented an instrument of denunciation in 2012, decided to re-ratify the Convention in 2019. Although the ACHR is, according to Art. 74(1), open to all OAS Member States for signature and ratification, the United States of America, Canada and several other English-speaking countries have not ratified the Convention.

The ACHR can be considered the legal centrepiece of the Inter-American Human Rights System. It is divided into three parts, from which the first enshrines fundamental human rights and corresponding State obligations (Art. 1-32), the second establishes the means of protection (Art. 33-73) and the third consists of general and transitory provisions (Art. 74-82). The main focus of the ACHR lies on the protection of traditional civil and political rights, such as the right to life (Art. 4), the right to humane treatment (Art. 5), the right to personal liberty (Art. 7), the right to a fair trial (Art. 8), freedom of thought and expression (Art. 13) or the right to judicial protection (Art. 25). However, Art. 26 provides for the progressive and full realization of the rights 'implicit in the economic, social, educational, scientific, and cultural standards set forth in the Charter of the Organization of American States.'

Besides the rights and freedoms expressly codified in the ACHR, other rights have been read into the Convention through progressive interpretation. Particularly worth mentioning is the right to (know) the truth, whose emergence is related to the systematic practice of forced disappearance in situations of civil war or dictatorship that have for long periods dominated large parts of the Inter-American hemisphere. Its foundation was already laid in the IACtHR's first case, Velásquez Rodríguez Vs. Honduras. The right to know the truth is based on judicial guarantees anchored in Art. 8 and 25 of the Convention and requires the Member States to ensure, within a reasonable time, "the right of the victim or his or her next of kin to learn the truth about what happened and for those responsible for being punished."

Although second-generation rights had been condensed to a single provision, recently Art. 26 ACHR has been used as a door-opener to import economic, social, cultural and environmental rights into the scope of the Convention, including the rights to job security, health, a healthy environment, adequate food, water and take part in cultural life. This progressive approach taken by the IACtHR has been criticized See particularly the critique coming from within the Court itself: IACtHR, Case of Suárez Peralta Vs. Ecuador (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment of 21 May 2013, Serie C No. 261, separate opinion of judge Alberto Pérez Pérez; IACtHR, Case of Gonzales Lluy et al. Vs. Ecuador (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment, 1 September 2015, Series C No. 298, concurring opinion of judge Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto and concurring opinion of judge Alberto Pérez Pérez; IACtHR, Case of Dismissed Employees of Petroperú et al. Vs. Peru (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment, 23 November 2017, Series C No. 344, partially dissenting opinion of judge Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto; IACtHR, Case of Lagos del Campo Vs. Peru (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs) Judgment, 31 August 2017, Series C No. 340, partially dissenting opinion of judge Eduardo Vio Grossi; IACtHR, Case of the Indigenous Communities of the Lhaka Honhat Association (Our Land) Vs. Argentina (Merits, Reparations and Costs), Judgment, 6 February 2020, Series C No. 400, partially dissenting opinion of Humberto Antonie Sierra Porto. See also Oswaldo R. Ruiz-Chiriboga, 'The American Convention and the Protocol of San Salvador: Two Intertwined Treaties – Non-Enforceability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Inter-American System' (2013) 31 (2) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 159; James L. Cavallaro and Emily J. Schaffer, 'Less as More: Rethinking Supernational Litigation of Economic and Social Rights in the Americas' (2004) 56 Hastings Law Journal 267; James L. Cavallaro and Emily J. Schaffer, 'Rejoinder: Justice before Justiciability: Inter-American Litigation and Social Change' (2006) 39 NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 365. See also Juana María Ibáñez Rivas, 'La justiciabilidad directa de los derechos económicos, sociales, culturales y ambientales: Génesis de la innovadora jurisprudencia interamericana' in Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, Liliana Roncoli y Laura Clérico (eds), Interamericanización de los DESCA – El Caso Cuscul Pivaral de la Corte IDH (Mexico 2020) 67, particualrly 92; Eleanor Benz & Verena Kahl, 'El caso Lhaka Honhat: la extensión de la justiciabilidad directa de los DESCA y la esperanza incumplida de la concreción del derecho a un medioambiente sano' in Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi y Rogelio Flores Pantoja (eds.), El caso Lhaka Honhat vs. Argentina y las tendencias de su interamericanización (México 2021) 237. as much as it has been celebrated. See, inter alia, Óscar Parra Vera, 'La Justiciabilidad de los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales en el Sistema Interamericano a la luz del Art. 26 de la Convención Americana: El sentido y la promesa del caso Lagos del Campo' in Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi y Rogelio Flores Pantoja (eds), Inclusión, Ius Commune y Justiciabilidad de los DESCA en la Jurisprudencia Interamericana – El Caso Lagos del Campo y los nuevos desafíos, (Mexico 2018) 181; Jorge Calderón Gamboa, 'La puerta de la justiciabilidad de los derechos económicos, sociales, culturales y ambientales en el Sistema Interamericano: relevancia de la sentencia Lagos del Campo' in Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi y Rogelio Flores Pantoja (eds.), Inclusión, Ius Commune y Justiciabilidad de los DESCA en la Jurisprudencia Interamericana – El Caso Lagos del Campo y los nuevos desafíos, (Mexico 2018) 333; Angel Cabrera, Daniel Cerqueira and Salvador Herencia, 'Comentarios a la sentencia de la Corte Interamericana sobre el Caso Lhaka Honhat Vs. Argentina' (Justicia en las Américas, 30 April 2020) ; Tina Downsend and Maria Antonia Tigre, 'Lhaka Honhat Association Vs. Argentina: the human right to environment in the Inter-American Court' (The Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, 10 April 2020) ; Lara Dominguez, 'The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Issues Landmark Judgment in Indigenous Rights Case' (Minority Rights Group International, 16 April 2020) . See also Tala Melish who already in 2006 argued for the direct justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights: Tala Melish, 'Rethinking the “Less as More” Thesis: Supranational Litigation of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in the Americas' (2006) 39 NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 220.

III. Other relevant Instruments
The diversification of international human rights law in the decades following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has equally taken place in the context of the Inter-American Human Rights System connecting to the historical process of human rights codification in different subsequent agreements, which is to a certain extent - with the particular exception of the African Human Rights System - reflected in the concept of human rights generations. Following this narrative, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, named 'Protocol of San Salvador' was adopted in November 1988 and entered into force only eleven years later in 1999. Similarly, human rights expansion in international and regional treaty law was directed towards groups that suffer from structural discrimination or generally require specific protection, such as women, BIPoC, persons with disabilities or children. Besides a general agreement on non-discrimination, the Inter-American Convention against all Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance, several other instruments were adopted with regard to specific groups. These include, inter alia, the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, also called "Convention of Belém do Pará", the Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors or the Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities. Taking into account the presence of many indigenous communities in the region, the OAS General Assembly has also adopted the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While the rights of LGBTI (or QUILTBAG+) persons have in terms of separate legal instruments only be addressed in the Draft Resolution on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity and Expression, specific emphasis has to be put on the evolution of the IACtHR's jurisprudence on the matter in its Advisory Opinion No. 24 on gender identity, equality and non-discrimination with regard to same-sex couples.

I. Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The IACtHR was created as a permanent and autonomous organ of the OAS by the ACHR in 1969. As the Convention did not enter into force until 1978, it took a decade for the Court to make it from paper to an actual operating institution. In 1979, the IACtHR's first judges were elected  and the Court was officially installed in its headquarters in San José, Costa Rica.

1. Composition
According to Art. 52(1) ACHR, the IACtHR is composed of seven judges which have to be OAS Member State nationals and jurists of the highest moral authority and of recognized competence in the field of human rights. They are elected by the OAS General Assembly for a term of six years with the possibility of a single re-election (Art. 54(1) ACHR). Since the last election in November 2021, for the first time in the history of the IACtHR there have been three women among the sitting judges.

2. Jurisdiction and Functions
According to Art. 1 of its Statute, the IACtHR is an "autonomous judicial institution whose purpose is the application and interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights." Art. 2 of the Statute describes the functions of the Court as twofold:

First, in the realm of its judiciary or contentious function which is governed by Articles 61 to 63 of the ACHR, the Court has the competence to hear and rule on cases submitted by the IACHR or a State Party to the Convention (Art. 61(1) ACHR), provided that the State, which is party to the case, has recognized the Court's jurisdiction according to Art. 62(3) ACHR and that the procedure before the Commission enshrined in Art. 48 to 50 ACHR has been exhausted (Art. 61(2) ACHR). For cases to reach the IACtHR States must have recognized the jurisdiction of the Court pursuant to Art. 62(1) ACHR. Furthermore, pursuant to Art. 63(2) ACHR, the Court can adopt provisional measures in cases of extreme gravity and urgency, and when necessary to avoid irreparable damage to persons. According to Art. 67 and 68(1) of the Convention, States must undertake to comply with the judgments of those cases to which they are parties. Thereupon, both the Court and the Commission have developed an innovative network of institutions and procedures to supervise compliance with corresponding decisions. As regards the IACtHR, mediums of monitoring include the request for information, monitoring hearings, on-site visits and issuing orders on monitoring compliance. Furthermore, the Court has also used informal meetings with State agents or delegations and the involvement of domestic institutions and organs for monitoring purposes. In this sense, unlike its regional counterparts, the IACtHR itself monitors the compliance with its judgments and provisional measures. The procedure for this monitoring is laid down in Art. 69 of the Court's Rules of Procedure.

Second, Art. 64 ACHR provides for an advisory function which allows a) OAS Member States and organs listed in Chapter X of the OAS Charter, including the IACHR, to consult the Court with regard to the interpretation of the ACHR or other treaties concerning the protection of human rights in the American States (Art. 64(1) ACHR), and b) OAS Member States to request an advisory opinion with regard to the compatibility of internal norms with the Convention among others (Art. 64(2) ACHR). Due to a lack of contentious cases during its first years of operation, the IACtHR built its jurisprudence by relying heavily on its responses to requests for advisory opinions. Since then, the Court has regularly made use of this function to - often progressively - interpret the provisions of the American Convention and determine general legal standards that have been used and built upon in following contentious cases.

3. Emblematic decisions
While each of the more than 500 contentious cases and advisory opinions has its individual characteristics and significance, at least some of the topics and corresponding decisions should be highlighted, which reflect main struggles and achievements and/or new jurisprudential developments in the human rights context of the region and beyond, some of which have already been highlighted above, e.g. concerning forced disappearance or the rights of persons of the QUILTBAG+ community. As regards the aforementioned development of DESCA in the sphere of environmental protection, the intensive greening of the rights to life and personal integrity (Arts 4 and 5 ACHR) by means of principles originally stemming from international environmental law in the realm of Advisory Opinion No. 23 and the following Case of the Indigenous Communities of the Lhaka Honhat Association (Our Land) v. Argentina, where the Court for the first time found a violation of the autonomous right to a healthy environment, should not go without mentioning. The Court has further contributed outstanding standards regarding the rights of indigenous communities, particularly over their ancestral lands and natural resources, and corresponding State obligations, such as the creation of an effective mecanism for the delimitation, demarcation and titling of the ancestral territories or the duty to consult with the indigenous community and, if applicable, obtain its free, prior and informed consent in the case of projects (potentially) affecting their ancestral lands. Emblematic cases include, inter alia, Case of the Yakye Axa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay, Case of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay, [https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_172_ing.pdf Case of the Saramaka People. v. Suriname], Case of Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador and [https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_214_ing.pdf Case of the Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community. v. Paraguay].

In light of the region's historical experiences with dictatorships and violent conflicts, the IACtHR's jurisprudence on amnesty laws should also be referenced here. In its landmark decision in the Case of Barrios Altos v. Peru the IACtHR held for the first time that self-amnesty laws on serious human rights violations were manifestly incompatible with the American Convention and therefore lacked legal effect, a case that was followed by further important decisions, such as, Case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, Case of Gomes Lund et al. ("Guerrilha do Araguaia") v. Brazil and Case Gelman v. Uruguay.

4. Reparations
The great variety of reparatory measures ordered by the IACtHR can be considered as a distinguishing feature of its jurisprudence. In this sense, the Court has understood Art. 63(1) ACHR, which inter alia stipulates that it 'shall also rule, if appropriate, that the consequences of the measure or situation that constituted the breach of such right or freedom be remedied and that fair compensation be paid to the injured party', conceding it the competence to chose between a broad variety of remedies to address the particular harm occurred. Since 2007, remedial measures ordered by the IACtHR are twofold in terms of categories: monetary compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage on the one side and measures of satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition on the other side. Pecuniary damage refers to 'the loss or detriment to the income of the victims, the expenses incurred due to the facts and the pecuniary consequences that are causally linked to the facts of the case', while non-pecuniary damage involves 'injurious effects of the facts of the case that are not financial or patrimonial in nature', including the 'suffering and affliction caused to the direct victims and their relatives, detriment to the persons’ very significant values, and non-pecuniary alterations to the conditions of life of the victim or his family.'

For an integral reparation to the victims, the non-pecuniary damage can be compensated through i) the payment of a financial amount or the delivery of goods of significant value to be determined by reasonable application of legal descretion and fairness, and/or through ii) acts or civil works of a public nature (or with corresponding public impact) that serve 'the recovery of the victims' memory, acknowledgement of their dignity, consolation of their next of kin, or dissemination of a message of official disapproval of the respective human rights violations and of commitment to efforts to ensure that they do not happen again.' In this sense, the Court has been particularly innovative in tailoring remedial measures to the specific case with regard to the second category, thereby going beyond pecuniary compensation and also adhering to the goal of full restitution (restitutio in integrum). Measures of satisfaction and guarantess of non-repetition that have been ordered directed to individual victims, communities, and society as a whole, include, inter alia, the nullifaction of criminal convictions, reinstatement of employment, medical and/or psychological treatment for the victims/their next of kin, the devolution of the victims' body to their relatives, granting of scholarships, the investigation, prosecution and punishment of human rights violations, official or public acts of apology and recognition of responsibility, publication of parts of the judgment, measures to commemorate the victims and/or the events, domestic legal reform to conform with Inter-American human rights standards as well as capacity building, particularly of State agents and military forces.

II. Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
The Inter-American Commission is a quasi-judicial organ of the Organization of the American States, created for the supervision and defense of human rights and to serve as consultative organ of the Organization  In the “Viviana Gallardo” case, the former Judge of the Inter-American Court, Piza Escalante pointed out in his reasoned opinion that the Inter-American Commission never has the status of a substantial party, plaintiff or defendant, but always that of a sui generis party, purely procedural, auxiliary to justice, in the manner of a "public ministry" of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights.

The Inter-American Commission fulfils its function of promoting and protecting human rights by studying individual petitions, but also through political and diplomatic tools, documenting and denouncing publicly, those patterns of human rights violations even in cases that are not pending before her.

Both the Commission and the Court have seven members (commissioners and judges), who must have high moral authority and a recognized understanding of human rights law, and in the case of Court judges, they must also meet the conditions required for the exercise of the highest judicial functions in accordance with the law of the country of which they are nationals or of the State that proposes them as candidates.

This function leads to many reports that are publicly accessible. Several types of reports are produced by the Commission, country reports; reports where the results of the in loco visit (on-site visit) for OAS states are condensed -Cf. art. 39 and 53 of the Regulations-;thematic reports on specific topics like  Rights of LGBTI Persons, Violence and Discrimination against Women and Girls, corruption, and human rights, Public Policy with a Human Rights Approach, Equality and Non-discrimination; annuals report, which includes data on the processing of petitions, the activities carried out in relation to the Inter-American Court and other human rights bodies.

The Commission has eleven rapporteurships on indigenous peoples, women, freedom of expression, children, human rights defenders and justice operators, persons deprived of liberty, LGBTI persons, migrants, rights of Afro-descendants and against racial discrimination, older persons, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights (ESCER) that prepare specialized recommendations addressed to OAS member states and advise the Commission in the processing of petitions.

The Regional Protection System allows individual petitions (art. 44 ACHR) and interstate communications (ACHR art. 45), except for the difference of the claimant, the following procedure is identical.

The jurisdictional procedure before the Inter-American Commission is divided into four procedural stages: initial processing, admissibility, merits, and referral of the case to the Court. The Commission could be understood as a gatekeeper for the cases before they are presented to the Court.

Precautionary measures (under the Inter-American Commission) and provisional measures (within the Inter-American Court's jurisdiction) are also a function of the system's bodies. Their origins and legal implications diverge. The precautionary measures of the Commission are an evolutive interpretation of its own Rules (art. 25), and their bindingness is contested. In contrast, the provisional measures of the Court are derived from the Convention (art. 63.2 ACHR) and are obligatory as treaty provisions. These measures are implemented when a serious situation—or an extreme one in the case of the Inter-American Court—is acknowledged in the proceedings and when quick action is required to prevent irreparable harm to the victims (see article 63.2 ACHR). The Inter-American Court has said in its decisions that the goal of the measures is to protect the rights of the parties to the dispute and make sure that their activities throughout the litigation do not affect the outcome of the verdict on the merits.

During the initial processing the Executive Secretariat will receive and process the petitions that are presented to it and those that pass said initial review are notified to the State (arts. 26, 27, 28 and 29.1 IACHR regulations), then, the "admissibility" stage will culminate with a report where the Commission verifies whether it is competent ratione temporis, materiae, loci and personae and if the petition meets the admissibility requirements conventionally required, specially referred to subsidiarity issues  (art. 44 et seq. ACHR and 30 and 36.1 IACHR regulations).

An issue of special relevance in the proceedings before the Inter-American Commission is the possibility of always reaching a friendly settlement agreement that puts an end to the process.

In the Merits stage, if the Commission determines that there is state responsibility for an international wrongful act, it will issue a preliminary report that will be notified to the State (ACHR art. 50), if within the time period conferred, the State does not comply with the recommendations made by the Commission, it will decide between issuing the report on the merits (ACHR art. 51) and publishing it, or referring the case to the Inter-American Court.

D. Monitoring compliance with judgments
1. Highlights of the IACHR activity and effectiveness of its judgments.

Compliance with judgments of the Inter-American Court is still relative since, to date, out of 318 judgments, only 35 have been filed for total compliance. The progress of compliance with the measures ordered by the Inter-American Court faces two types of problems that can coexist: a. the normative issue – due to lack of legal regulation within States, and b. the structural issue – where institutional obstacles arise in the hands of those responsible for compliance with the measure in the domestic sphere.

These issues at the domestic level include the ignorance of international law, the lack of prior debate on how to comply with the specific measure of reparation between State agencies, or the political reluctance to comply with their judgments. This generates a notable gap between decisions and their execution.

2. Judgments on Supervision

The part of a judgment that stipulates compensatory damages may be executed in the country concerned in accordance with domestic procedure governing the execution of judgments against the state (art. 68.2 ACHR). The supervision of compliance with what is ordered in the judgment falls on the head of the Inter-American Court, which will deploy various actions to accompany this process, ranging from requests for reports to the parties, hearings, recommendations for the induction of compliance to the complaint of the cases of non-compliance with the Organization of American States.

The Inter-American Court issues specific judgments on supervision where it condenses the information collected and progress in compliance, which is then described and compiled in its annual report. Pursuant to Article 65 of the ACHR, the Inter-American Court must submit a report each year to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in which it indicates – among other things – in a special way the cases in which a State has not complied. In this regard, in the act of reporting on the breach by a State of the merits sentence, a moral and political sanction is materialized. Likewise, this practice has been the subject of various reproaches, mainly due to the absence of debate within the OAS on issues relating to the non-compliance by some of its member states of the principle pacta sunt servanda and the reparations ordered in the judgments of the Court.

E. The doctrine of "Conventionality Control"
The concept of Conventionality Control is one of the most effective efforts of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to increase the level of compliance with the American Convention.

Conventionality Control is a guarantee designed to obtain the harmonious application of international and domestic law. This, according to the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court includes all the organs of the State, at all levels, within the framework of their competences. It encompasses both the ACHR as well as other treaties such as the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons. It also includes the decisions of the Inter-American Court both in its contentious and advisory jurisdiction and allows the repeal of internal regulations incompatible with the ACHR, but at the same time it functions as a parameter to eradicate practices contrary to the values that inspired the Convention.

The concept of Conventionality Control has been developed and expanded in key judgments in the history of the Inter-American Court. It was first developed in the reasoned concurring opinion of Judge Sergio García-Ramírez in the merits judgment for the “[https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_101_ing.pdf Mack Chang v. Guatemala]” case: "“For the effects  of the  American Convention and of the exercise of the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, the State is considered integrally, as a whole. Accordingly, responsibility is global, it concerns the State as a whole and cannot be subject to the division of authority established  n domestic law. At the international level, it is not possible to divide the  State, to bind before the Court only one or some of its organs, to grant them representation of the State in the proceeding – without this representation affecting the whole State – and excluding other organs from this treaty regime of responsibility, leaving their actions outside the “treaty  control” (control de convencionalidad) that involves the jurisdiction of the international  court”"Two years later, in the “Almonacid Arellano” case, The Court, for the first time, used the notion in the reasoning of one of its decisions:"“The Court is aware that domestic judges and  courts are bound  to respect the rule of  law, and therefore,  they are bound to apply the provisions  in force within  the legal system. But when a State has ratified  an international  treaty such  as  the American Convention,  its judges, as part  of the State, are also  bound by such Convention. This forces  them to see that all the effects of  the provisions embodied in the  Convention are not adversely affected  by the enforcement of laws  which  are contrary to its  purpose and that have  not  had any legal effects since  their inception. In other words, the Judiciary must exercise a sort  of “conventionality  control” between  the domestic legal provisions  which are applied to specific cases and the American Convention on  Human Rights. To perform this  task, the Judiciary has to take into account  not only  the treaty,  but  also the interpretation thereof made by  the Inter-American  Court, which  is  the ultimate  interpreter of  the American Convention” (p. 124)."From the paragraphs cited above, it has been understood that the Inter-American Court recognizes two types of conventionality control: The first type, known as “internationally performed Conventionality control” (control de convencionalidad en sede internacional) is carried out by the Judges of the Inter-American Court during proceedings under the jurisdiction of the System, and implies the confrontation of the state conduct and the contents of the American Convention, triggering when the Inter-American Court, as part of its decisions, orders the suspension, revision or withdrawal or domestic norms of the State, including not only bills, but also administrative acts, case-law, administrative or judicial orders and practices that are in violation of the American Convention on Human Rights. The scope of this first kind of conventionality control, was clarified in the separate concurring opinion of Judge Sergio Garcia-Ramirez, in the merits judgment of the “Tibi” case:"“In  a  certain sense,  the  task of  the  Court is  similar  to that  of  the constitutional courts.  The  latter examine  the  challenged acts  –decisions  with a  general  scope- in  light of  the legal  standards,  principles, and  values  of  the  basic laws of the State.  The  Inter-American  Court, in turn,  analyzes  the acts  that  are brought  before  it in  connection  with the  legal standards,  principles, and  values  of  the  treaties on  which  it bases  its  adjudicatory jurisdiction.   In other words, if constitutional courts oversee “constitutionality,” the international human rights  court decides  on  the “conventionality”  of  those acts. By controlling constitutionality, the domestic bodies seek to ensure that activities of the public authorities –and, perhaps, of other social agents-  are in accordance with the order that is inherent to the  Rule of  Law  in  a  democratic society. The Inter-American Court, in turn,  seeks  to ensure  that  this activity  is  in accordance  with  the international  order  set forth in  the  Convention that  founded  the inter-American  jurisdiction  and was  accepted  by the States  Parties  exercising their  sovereignty” (p.3)"The second type, known as national conventionality control, implies that every organ or agent of the State is capable to perform a control of conventionality to the extent of is competences, and the purpose of this control is that any State authorities must not apply a norm contrary to the Convention, and also, that they must interpret and apply all domestic laws in a way that complies with the Convention, its protocols and the Inter-American case-law, and to discard those "interpretations" that are contrary or incompatible with any conventional parameter.

This national conventionality control, (also referred as “diffused control” (control difuso) in the sense that the competence of controlling the acts of the State vis-à-vis the Convention is diffused, disseminated in all the organs and agents of the State), according to the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court, includes all organs of the State, at all territorial, regional or national levels, within the framework of their competences; It encompasses both the ACHR as well as other treaties such as the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons; It also includes the resolutions of the Inter-American Court both in its contentious and advisory jurisdiction and allows the repeal of internal regulations incompatible with the ACHR, but at the same time it functions as a parameter to eradicate practices contrary to the values that inspired the Convention.

National conventionality control encourages State’s agents to apply international law, disregard domestic laws that collides with the Inter-American Convention and to go as far their national competences can take them, in order to solve a collision between national law and the Convention, for example, a local police officer could decide not to apply a regulation that the finds contrary to the Convention, but only the national congress, or a national court might have the competence to derogate such law, all the State’s organs and agents are responsible for fulfilling their competence. In the “Urrutia Laubraux” case, the Court stated: “the control of conventionality has been conceived as a mechanism to apply international law, in this case international human rights law, and specifically the American Convention and its sources, including the case law of this Court.” (p.93)

Further Readings

 * Armin von Bogdandy, Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, Flávia Piovesan and Ximena Soley, Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Emergence of a New Ius Commune (Oxford University Press 2017).
 * James L. Cavallaro, Claret Vargas, Clara Sandoval, Bernard Duhaime, Doctrine, Practice, and Advocacy in the Inter-American Human Rights System (Oxford University Press 2019).
 * Yves Haeck, Oswaldo Ruiz-Chiriboga and Clara Burbano-Herrera, The Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Theory and Practice, Present and Future (Intersentia 2015).
 * Ludovic Hennebel and Hélène Tigroudja, The American Convention on Human Rights: A Commentary (Oxford University Press 2022).
 * Jo M. Pasqualucci, The practice and procedure of the inter-american court of human rights (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed 2013).
 * Ximena Soley and Silvia Steininger, 'Parting Ways or Lashing Back? Withdrawals, Backlash and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' (2018) 14 International Journal of Law in Context 237.

Further Resources

 * Anual reports with detailed information and statistics on the Court's jurisprudence are published in four different languages, available at: https://www.corteidh.or.cr/informes_anuales.cfm?lang=en.
 * The IACtHR regularly publishes Journals of Jurisprudence (Cuadernillos de Jurisprudencia) concerning specific topics and member States, available in Spanish only at: https://www.corteidh.or.cr/publicaciones.cfm?lang=en.
 * Interactive Map of member States with updated information on pending cases, cases with judgment and provisional measures, available at: https://www.corteidh.or.cr/mapa_casos_pais.cfm?lang=en.
 * The movie 'Helena from Sarayaku' (2022) directed by Eriberto Gualinga follows Helena and the indigenous community of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in their struggle to protect their ancestral lands and the 'living forest'.


text:
Public International Law/Human Rights Law/Human Rights Protection/ Other Human Rights Systems

Author: Jane Doe "Required knowledge: Link" "Learning objectives: Understanding XY."

This is where the text begins. This template follows our style guide. Please take into account our guidelines for didactics. If you're wondering how to create text in Wikibooks, feel free to check out our guide on how to write in Wikibooks.

Just replace the content above and below with your content.

Further Readings

 * Source I
 * Source II

Conclusion

 * Summary I
 * Summary II


text: User:Mbrickn/Strategy Guide Cleanup/

title: User:Mbrickn/Strategy Guide Cleanup/


text: Shelf:Metroid

title: Shelf:Metroid


text: Category:Shelf:Metroid/all books

title: Category:Shelf:Metroid/all books


text: Shelf:Metroid/ancestry

title: Shelf:Metroid/ancestry


text: Category:Shelf:Metroid

title: Category:Shelf:Metroid


text: Category:Subject:Metroid

title: Category:Subject:Metroid


text: Subject:Metroid

title: Subject:Metroid


text: Category:Subject:Metroid/all books

title: Category:Subject:Metroid/all books


text:
User:Swstegall/sandbox

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

title: User:Swstegall/sandbox


text:
User talk:Swstegall/sandbox

this is a comment test

title: User talk:Swstegall/sandbox


text:
Pokémon/Notable Limits

The following is a list of maximum and minimum values for quantities in Pokémon games.

Main series (or core series)

 * The lowest possible HP stat is one, held uniquely by Shedinja.
 * Aside from this unique exception, the lowest possible HP stat is 11 at Level 1. The HP stat always increases by at least one point on every level-up, so at Level 50, the minimum HP stat is 60, and at Level 100, the minimum HP stat is 110. More generally, the minimum HP stat for any given level is the level’s number plus ten.
 * The lowest possible value for the Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, or Speed for any individual Pokémon that does not have a hindering nature for the stat is 5. If the Pokémon has a hindering nature and a base stat of 49 or lower, the minimum value falls to 4 instead.
 * The lowest possible level that a Pokémon can have 100 HP or greater is Level 13. A Level 13 Blissey with 31 IV and 252 EV reaches a value of 101 HP. On the other hand, your first stage starter Pokémon tends to be in the 35-40 range at that level. A Blissey whose Dynamax factor has been maximized with Dynamax candies can break the 100 HP barrier as early as Level 6. She can have as much as 52 HP at that level and that 52 gets doubled to 104 when she is Dynamaxed. So the absolute lowest level your Pokémon can have a triple-digit HP stat is Level 6.
 * The lowest level that a Sylveon, Umbreon, or Espeon can legitimately be is Level 2.
 * In the Battle Tower, due to the level limit of Level 50, the maximum number of experience points these Pokémon can have while in the Battle Tower is 132,650 (the Level 51 requirement minus one).
 * The range for the number of experience points of a Sylveon on a Battle Tower team is 132,642 because 132,650 − 8 = 132,642.
 * The lowest possible level that a Monferno can legitimately be is Level 14. If you receive a Monferno that is Level 13 or below, by trading with another player, you can bet your life savings that it is hacked, so if you care about participating in online events, release it immediately.
 * The lowest possible level that an Infernape can legally be is Level 36.
 * The highest possible HP stat is 714. The only Pokémon that can reach this figure is Blissey, with maximum HP investment.
 * The lowest possible Speed stat for a Level 50 Sylveon is 58. This happens if the Sylveon has 0 IV, 0 EV, and a Speed-lowering nature.
 * Even though Shuckle is tied with Munchlax for being the slowest Pokémon, its Speed stat at Level 100 can be no lower than 13, even with a Speed-lowering nature.
 * If a Pokémon that is holding a Shell Bell in the Battle Tower knocks out an opponent in one hit, and the opponent is not Shedinja, the minimum amount of HP the Pokémon can recover from Shell Bell is seven. This is because the minimum HP for Level 50 Pokémon is 60, and one-eighth of that is 7.5, rounded down to 7.
 * If the opponent has Recover, and you are dealing less than 50% damage to them, do not expect to KO them any time soon. Whenever your opponent’s recovery outweighs the damage you are dealing to it, your opponent is regaining HP in the long term. Thanks to recovery moves, damage does not always equal progress. If your Shell Bell recovery is 3 hit points or less, this alone means you are dealing insufficient damage to defeat a Toxapex that knows Recover.

title: Pokémon/Notable Limits


text:
Ultimate/Introduction

Purpose of this book
This book has the purpose to illustrate:

 * What the basics of the game are.
 * How a beginner can learn the basics of the game.
 * How a coach can teach the basics of the game to a team of beginners.

Intended audience
The intended audience for this is for people of all ages interested in Ultimate Frisbee.

title: Ultimate/Introduction