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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

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References

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.