CONCURRING OPINION OF JUDGE A.A. CANÇADO TRINDADE
1.
I completely agree with the instant Judgment of the Inter-American Court on the
preliminary objection, which reflects its jurisprudence constante and the thesis I have been
supporting for more than two decades 1, that is, that within the scope of International Human
Rights Law, the preliminary objection of non-exhaustion of the domestic remedies is of pure
admissibility, to be filed by the respondent government in limine litis, without which an implied
waiver on the part of the respondent government is presumed.
2.
I record that I am writing this Opinion, as usual, under the merciless pressure of time,
and I state what I have just expressed in the fruitful public hearing on the preliminary
objection which took place before this Court only ten minutes ago: my real satisfaction with
the statements of the acting parties (the government which filed the objection —reus in
excipiendo fit actor— the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the petitioners´
Representatives), in the sense of the need for a deeper reflection regarding the improving of
the proceedings under the American Convention on Human Rights, and a better understanding
of the role of the Commission under the Convention.
3.
My position on the matter is very clear, and it is so recorded in the Protocol to the
American Convention on Human Rights, that I allowed myself to introduce in the name of the
Inter-American Court before the competent organs of the Organization of American States
(OAS) in 20012, which consecrates the direct access to international justice by the human
being, the automatically compulsory jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, the
jurisdictionalization of the Inter-American system of protection and the retention, within the
scope of the latter, at present, of the role of prosecutor of the Inter-American Commission.
Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade
Judge
Pablo Saavedra Alessandri
Secretary
.
A.A. Cançado Trindade, The Application of the Rule of Exhaustion of Local Remedies in
International Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983; A.A. Cançado Trindade, O Esgotamento
de Recursos Internos no Direito Internacional, 2nd. ed., Brasília, Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1997.
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.
A.A. Cançado Trindade, Bases para un Proyecto de Protocolo a la Convención Americana sobre
Derechos Humanos, para Fortalecer Su Mecanismo de Protección, vol. II, 2nd. ed., San José de Costa
Rica, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 2003, pp. 1-1015.
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