5
1948),10 it was transplanted to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of December
1948), and from there to the European and American Conventions on Human Rights
(Articles 13 and 25, respectively), as well as to the United Nations Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (Article 2(3)). Under the European Convention on Human Rights, in
particular, it has generated a considerable case-law,11 apart from a dense doctrinal debate.
It could be argued that, for Article 25 of the American Convention to have effects
vis-à-vis acts of the Legislative Power, for example, the incorporation of the American
Convention into the domestic law of the States Parties would be required. Such
incorporation is undoubtedly desirable and necessary, but, by the fact of not having
incorporated it, a State Party would not thereby be dispensed from applying always the
judicial guarantee stipulated in Article 25. Such guarantee is intimately linked to the
general obligation of Article 1(1) of the American Convention, which, in turn, confers
functions of protection onto the domestic law of the States Parties.
Articles 25 and 1(1) of the Convention are mutually reinforcing, in the sense of
securing the compliance with one and the other in the ambit of domestic law. Articles 25
and 1(1) require, jointly, the direct application of the American Convention in the domestic
law of the States Parties. In the hypothesis of alleged obstacles of domestic law, Article 2
of the Convention comes into operation, requiring the harmonization with the Convention
of the domestic law of the States Parties. These latter are obliged, by Articles 25 and 1(1)
of the Convention, to establish a system of simple and prompt local remedies, and to give
them effective application.12 If de facto they do not do so, due to alleged lacunae or
insufficiencies of domestic law, they incur into a violation of Articles 25, 1(1) and 2 of the
Convention." (paras. 18-21).
13.
Little after the mentioned cases of Genie Lacayo and Caballero Delgado and
Santana, the Inter-American Court, for the first time in the case of Castillo Páez versus
Peru (Judgment on the merits, of 11.03.1997), stated the material content and scope
of Article 25 of the Convention, which it concluded had been violated, in combination
with Article 1(1) of the same, by the respondent government. In the words of the
Court itself, the provision of Article 25 on the right to an effective recourse before the
national competent judges or courts “is one of the fundamental pillars not only of the
American Convention, but of the very rule of law in a democratic society in the terms
of the Convention. (para. 82)”13
14.
Since then this has been the Court’s position in this regard, reiterated in its
decisions on the merits of the cases of Suárez Rosero versus Ecuador (Judgment of
11.12.1997, para. 65), Blake versus Guatemala (Judgment of 01.24.1998, para. 102),
Paniagua Moralesa, et al. versus Guatemala (Judgment of 03.08.1998, para. 164),
10
At the same time that, in parallel, the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations was still
preparing the Project of the Universal Declaration (from May 1947 until June 1948), as stated, in a fragment
of the memoirs by the rapporteur of the Commission (René Cassin); the insertion of the disposition on the
right to an effective recourse before the domestic jurisdictions in the Universal Declaration (Article 8),
inspired on the corresponding disposition of the American Declaration (Article XVIII), was carried out in the
following debates (of 1948) of the III Commission of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Cf. R.
Cassin, "Quelques souvenirs sur la Déclaration Universelle de 1948", 15 Revue de droit contemporain (1968)
n. 1, p. 10.
11
Cf. infra.
12
The matter of the effectiveness of domestic recourses is intimately related to the administration of
justice itself and the operation of domestic competent organizations for the reparation of the violations of the
protected rights.
13
Emphasis increased.