Forthcoming Publication to Examine Impact of IAHRS
One of the major research outputs of the Inter-American Human Rights Network (IAHRN) will be a scholarly publication on the impact of the IAHRS. The volume will contain chapter contributions from prominent academics and practitioners with expertise in the Inter-American system.
The book proposes to approach the question of impact from three different angles: by examining specific IAHRS mechanisms, domestic actors and institutions, and country studies. For each of these areas, authors will draw on both quantitative and qualitative evidence to analyse the ways in which the IAHRS has had a positive, negative or negligible impact on human rights outcomes in the Americas.
Specific contributions include examinations of: IAHRS impact on domestic constitutional mechanisms; the effectiveness of friendly settlement mechanisms; the scope and limits of IACtHR judgements on disappearance cases in the 1970s; the contribution of the IAHRS to transitional justice in Peru; the interaction between judicial politics and the Inter-American system; a comparative analysis of civil society engagement with the system; the utility of interim measures; and discussions regarding compliance issues and the implementation of IAHRS recommendations.
Throughout the book authors will draw on case studies from across the region to support their arguments. However, particular attention will be paid to the instructive examples of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. The book will additionally contain a comparative component, in which the achievements (and shortcomings) of the IAHRS will be scrutinised against those of other human rights systems operating in other regions.
Draft papers for the volume will be discussed at the IAHRN launch workshop in Mexico in October 2014. Final chapters will be later compiled and edited by three members of the network’s executive committee: Sandra Borda (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), Par Engstrom (UCL Institute of the Americas, UK), and Rossana Rocha Reis (University of São Paulo, Brazil). An English-language manuscript is anticipated to be submitted for publication in the second half of 2015.
