Law and Politics in the Inter-American System

The Inter-American Human Rights System takes into account domestic political contexts in ways that sometimes have not been fully recognized. International human rights courts face a tension between the goal of expanding rights and the need to gain legitimacy with domestic constituencies. Cases involving national amnesty laws have posed this dilemma in acute fashion in the Inter-American System. An analysis of those cases and their domestic political contexts shows how the Commission and the Court have taken into account domestic circumstances, the first through the timing of referrals and the second through the Court’s jurisprudence.