The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Defending Social Rights Through Case-Based Petitions

SOCIAL RIGHTS JURISPRUDENCE: EMERGING TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW, M. Langford, ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008

54 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2007 Last revised: 12 Jan 2009

Abstract

This book chapter systematizes and critically assesses the growing social rights jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as it has developed under its three case-based competences: (1) quasi-adjudication of individual complaints, (2) approval of friendly settlements, and (3) issuance of precautionary measures. It begins by addressing the Commission's subject matter jurisdiction over economic, social and cultural rights, the legal obligations that correspond to such rights under system-specific adjudicatory process, and the regional body's procedures for considering individual complaints of human rights violations. It then critically reviews the Commission's jurisprudential developments to date on the right to health, the right to education, the right to social security, the right to housing and land resources, the rights to work, labor guarantees, and freedom to unionize, and the right to culture, respectively, under each of the Commission's case-based competences.

Keywords: international litigation, treaties, human rights, inter-American system, economic, social, cultural rights

Suggested Citation

Melish, Tara J., The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Defending Social Rights Through Case-Based Petitions. SOCIAL RIGHTS JURISPRUDENCE: EMERGING TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW, M. Langford, ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1000275

Tara J. Melish (Contact Author)

SUNY Buffalo Law School ( email )

School of Law
525 O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
United States
(716) 645-2257 (Phone)

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