Private Violence, Public Wrongs, and the Responsibility of States

This Article will discuss the decisions of the Inter-American Court, comparing them with U.S. judicial decisions involving “state action” and private conduct. It will point out the evolution in international law from restraints on the exercise of state power, to the more generalized obligation of ensuring respect for human rights. This Article concludes that the American Convention provides guarantees for individual rights that are lacking in U.S. constitutional law

Protecting Human Rights in a Globalized World

The shift in sovereignty accompanying globalization has meant that non-state actors are more involved than ever in issues relating to human rights. This development poses challenges to international human rights law, because for the most part that law has been designed to restrain abuses by powerful states and state agents. While globalization has enhanced the ability of civil society to function across borders and promote human rights, other actors have gained the power to violate human rights in unforeseen ways. This Article looks at the legal frameworks for globalization and for human rights, then asks to what extent globalization is good for human rights and to what extent human rights are good for globalization. It then considers several legal responses to globalization as they relate to the promotion and protection of human rights. This Article concludes that responses to globalization are significantly changing international law and institutions in order to protect persons from violations of human rights committed by non-state actors

The Rules and the Reality of Petition Procedures in the Inter-American Human Rights System

In this Essay, Professor Dinah Shelton draws on her personal experience as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to discuss the underlying causes of a crisis of commitment to the Inter-American system of human rights. Shelton traces the roots of this crisis in large part to the Inter-American petition procedures. Giving an in-depth account of the structure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the details of the petition procedures, Shelton explores the issues of legitimacy, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency raised by various aspects of the petitioning process, and discusses the various ways in which these issues in the petition process contribute to the broader crisis of the system\u27s authority. She ultimately concludes with a series of proposed reforms—ranging from radical to relatively simple—for improving the structure and procedures of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, with a view toward restoring the credibility of human rights protections in the Americas

Form, Function, and the Powers of International Courts

This Article examines the interplay of form, function, and the powers exercised by international courts. It first considers the functions or attributes of any institution that carries the name court or tribunal and reflects upon whether there are powers that must be deemed inherent in such an institution to allow it to fulfill the judicial function, irrespective of limitations placed on the court\u27s jurisdiction or the type of proceedings it conducts. This analysis can serve not only to understand international judicial powers, but also to aid in distinguishing international courts from nonjudicial treaty bodies and other international institutions concerned with compliance and dispute settlement. The Article then identifies four specific functions that states have expressly delegated to international courts. These functions are dispute settlement, compliance assessment, enforcement, and legal advice (advisory opinions). There is undoubtedly overlap between these functions and courts may undertake more than one of them, but each court has a dominant function at a given time that shapes the scope and exercise of its powers. A court whose primary purpose is dispute settlement, for example, may exercise powers not appropriate to a court whose function is to enforce international law by determining the guilt or innocence of an individual charged with an international crime, and vice versa. Controversy over a court\u27s utilization of implied and inherent powers may clearly still arise because complex and varied reasons lead states to create international courts. The different reasons may in turn lead the states to have different views about a court\u27s primary purpose or function. The conclusion suggests that courts, litigants, and scholars still may usefully examine any exercise of international judicial powers by considering the function of the court and asking whether the power is one inherent to all courts, expressly conferred on the particular court, or reasonably implied from an express or inherent power

The Rules and the Reality of Petition Procedures in the Inter-American Human Rights System

In this Essay, Professor Dinah Shelton draws on her personal experience as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to discuss the underlying causes of a crisis of commitment to the Inter-American system of human rights. Shelton traces the roots of this crisis in large part to the Inter-American petition procedures. Giving an in-depth account of the structure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the details of the petition procedures, Shelton explores the issues of legitimacy, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency raised by various aspects of the petitioning process, and discusses the various ways in which these issues in the petition process contribute to the broader crisis of the system\u27s authority. She ultimately concludes with a series of proposed reforms—ranging from radical to relatively simple—for improving the structure and procedures of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, with a view toward restoring the credibility of human rights protections in the Americas

International Human Rights Law: Principled, Double, or Absent Standards

Commemorative Symposium - Law and Inequality: The next 25 Year