Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T00:56:42.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The ECtHR, transregional dialogues and global constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2020

WAYNE SANDHOLTZ*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California90089, United States

Abstract

In A Cosmopolitan Legal Order, Stone Sweet and Ryan suggest that ‘from the standpoint of global law, we see that the [European Court of Human Rights] has taken its place in a pluralist, rights-based international order, as one trustee of this global order’. This article is a preliminary attempt to evaluate signs of movement toward global rights review. A multi-level charter of rights exists in the network of international and regional human rights treaties and in national constitutions. An incipient structure of global rights review exists in the form of the regional human rights courts, which see themselves as trustees of the larger global human rights system. Judicial dialogue among the regional courts allows for informal, decentralized coordination among them. The European Court of Human Rights serves as a point of reference for the African and Inter-American systems, though these also cite each other. Transregional judicial dialogue establishes a rudimentary, informal and decentralized mechanism of coordination among bodies that exercise a review function in the multi-level system of international human rights.

Type
Symposium/Special Issue Manuscript
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

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

References

1 Stone Sweet, A and Ryan, C, A Cosmopolitan Legal Order: Kant, Constitutional Justice, and the European Convention on Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018) 2728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Yap’s contribution to the symposium suggests that democracy is a prerequisite for the establishment of a cosmopolitan legal order: see Yap (this issue).

3 Brown and Andenæs (this issue) as well as Corradetti (this issue) view the CLO as a transitional form of legal cosmopolitanism.

4 See (n 1) 246.

5 Ibid 249.

6 Ibid.

7 Gardbaum, SHuman Rights and International Constitutionalism’ in Dunoff, JL and Trachtman, JP (eds) Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009) 233–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kumm, MThe Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship Between Constitutionalism in and Beyond the State’ in Dunoff, JL and Trachtman, JP (eds) Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009) 258325 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone Sweet, A and Palmer, EA Kantian System of Constitutional Justice: Rights, Trusteeship, Balancing’ (2017) 6(3) Global Constitutionalism 377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Law, DS and Versteeg, MThe Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism’ (2011) 99 California Law Review 1194.Google Scholar

9 See (n 1) 54, n 76.

10 Versteeg, MLaw versus Norms: The Impact of Human Rights Treaties on National Bills of Rights’ (2015) 171(1) Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Elkins, Z, Ginsburg, T and Simmons, BGetting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice’ (2013) 54(1) Harvard International Law Journal 61 Google Scholar; CJ Beck, JW Meyer, R Hosoki and GS Dori ‘Constitutions in World Society: A New Measure of Human Rights’, unpublished manuscript, 27 January 2017. Available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2906946>; Sloss, D and Sandholtz, WUniversal Human Rights and Constitutional Change’ (2019) 27(4) William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 1183.Google Scholar

12 Keller, H and Stone Sweet, A, A Europe of Rights: The Impact of the ECHR on National Legal Systems (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Góngora, ME Mera , , Inter-American Judicial Constitutionalism: On the Constitutional Rank of Human Rights Treaties in Latin America through National and Inter-American Adjudication (San José, Costa Rica: Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, 2011).Google Scholar

14 Viljoen, F, International Human Rights Law in Africa (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) Ch 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See (n 1) 249.

16 M Coppedge et al., ‘V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v8’ in Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2018. Available at: <https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-8>; M Coppedge et al. V-Dem Codebook v8, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2018. Available at <https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-8>.

17 Hassan v. United Kingdom, Judgment (Grand Chamber), European Court of Human Rights, App No 29750/09, 16 September 2014, para. 77.

18 ‘Other Treaties’ Subject to the Consultative Jurisdiction of the Court, Series A No 1, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-1, 24 September 1982, para 40.

19 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 1998, Art 7 (emphasis added).

20 See (n 1) 230–34.

21 Yap argues that as proportionality analysis has found its way into courts in South Korea and Taiwan, principles of trusteeship and rights affirmation have as well (Yap, this issue).

22 See (n 1) 246.

23 Sandholtz, W and Feldman, A, ‘The Trans-regional Construction of Human Rights’ in Brysk, A and Stohl, M (eds), Contesting Human Rights: Norms, Institutions and Practice (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2019) 107–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Statute of the International Court of Justice, Art 38(1)(d).

25 Voeten, E, ‘Borrowing and Nonborrowing Among International Courts’ (2010) 39(2) Journal of Legal Studies 553.Google Scholar

26 The data reported here include only final judgments on the merits; they exclude separate opinions, rulings on admissibility and advisory opinions.

27 The ECtHR cites the other two regional courts but only infrequently. Out of more than 18,000 merits judgments through 2015, the ECtHR cited the IACtHR in 60 and the African Court or the African Commission in sixteen. See W Sandholtz, ‘Human Rights Courts and Global Constitutionalism: Coordination through Judicial Dialogue’ (forthcoming) Global Constitutionalism.

28 Goiburú et al. v. Paraguay, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No 153, 22 September 2006, para 83.

29 ‘Street Children’ (Villagrán Morales et al) v Guatemala, Merits, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No 63, 19 November 1999, para 176, n 31.

30 González et al. (Cotton Field) v Mexico, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No. 205, 16 November 2009.

31 Atala Riffo and Daughters v Chile, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No 254, 21 November 2012.

32 Artavia Murillo et al v Costa Rica, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No 257, 28 November 2012; No 24: 115–17.

33 Mohamed Abubakari v United Republic of Tanzania, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 007/2013, 3 June 2016, para 158.

34 Actions pour la Protection des Droits de l’Homme (APDH) v Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 001/2014, 18 November 2016, para 95, 134.

35 Lohe Issa Konate v Burkina Faso, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 004/2013, 5 December 2014, paras 158–60.

36 Rev. Christopher R. Mtikila v United Republic of Tanzania, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 011/2011, 14 June 2013, paras 103–106.

37 Wilfred Onyango Nganyi & Nine Others v United Republic of Tanzania, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 006/2013, 18 March 2016, para 176–179.

38 Alex Thomas v United Republic of Tanzania, Judgment on Merits, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No 005/2013, 20 November 2015, paras 95–98.

39 See (n 1) 249.

40 See the contributions to this symposium by Andenæs and Corradetti.