substantive nature. It thus conditions the implementation (mise-en-oeuvre) of the
responsibility of the State (as a requisite of admissibility of an international petition or
complaint), but not the birth of such responsibility.
This is the thesis which I have been constantly sustaining for more than
twenty years (...).16 (...)I have always maintained that the birth and the
implementation of the international responsibility of the State correspond to two
distinct moments; in the present context of the international protection of human
rights, the requisite of prior exhaustion of remedies of domestic law conditions the
implementation, but not the birth, of that responsibility, which is conformed as from
the occurrence of an internationally wrongful act (or omission)(...)” (paras. 33-34).
17.
And, in two of my conclusions17 in that Concurring Opinion, which I wish to
reiterate here, I argued precisely, in brief, that
- “(...) the international responsibility of a State Party to a human
rights treaty arises at the moment of the occurrence of an international wrongful act or omission - (tempus commisi delicti), imputable to that State, in violation of the
treaty at issue;
- (...) in the context of the international protection of human rights, the rule of
exhaustion of remedies of domestic law is endowed with a procedural rather than
substantive nature (as a condition of admissibility of a petition or complaint to be
resolved in limine litis), thus conditioning the implementation but not the birth of the
international responsibility of a State Party to a human rights treaty” (para 40).
18.
The representative of the alleged victims and their next of kin (Mónica Feria
Tinta) has argued quite rightly in a similar vein before the Court in the instant case
of the Gómez Paquiyauri Brothers, both in her written pleadings on April 17, 2002
(pp. 13-14, para. 25), and in her oral pleadings at the seat of the Court on May 7,
2004.18 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in turn, missed this
important specific conceptual point, and that even led the Commission to
inappropriately mix the issue of the emergence of the international responsibility of
the State with the “principle of subsidiarity,” as it is called (see infra).
III.
Beyond Subsidiarity: the Interaction between International Law and
Domestic Law in the current Sphere of Protection
19.
In face of this misunderstanding, I must specify another point, to clarify this
conceptual matter and perhaps to provide a better understanding of the issue. In
its Report of 11.10.2001 (under Article 50 of the American Convention) on the
instant case, the Inter-American Commission argued, somewhat surprisingly, that
“not every violation” of human rights committed by the agents of the State entails
the international responsibility of the State; according to the Commission’s Report,
remedies are a part of the international system for protection of human rights, itself, with an emphasis
on the component of reparation (redress) rather than on the mechanical process of exhaustion (of said
remedies). The rule of domestic remedies attests to the interaction between international law and
domestic law in the current context of protection. We are here before a law of protection, endowed with
its own specificity, geared primarily toward the victims, toward the rights of the human beings and not
of the States. The generally accepted principles of international law (which the formulation of the rule of
domestic remedies refers to in human rights treaties such as the American Convention), in addition to
evolving differently in the various contexts where they are applied, necessarily undergo a certain degree
of adjustment or adaptation when they are included in human rights treaties, due to the special nature
of the object and purpose of said treaties and to the widely acknowledged specificity of the international
protection of human rights. A.A. Cançado Trindade, The Application of the Rule of Exhaustion of Local
Remedies in International Law, Cambridge, University Press, 1983, pp. 1-443, esp. 6-56. 279-287, 290-322,
and 410-412.
16
17
18
.
A.A. Cançado Trindade, "The Birth of State Responsibility...", op. cit. supra n. (10), pp. 157-188.
The first and the seventh.
.
I-A Ct of HR, Transcripción de la Audiencia Pública Celebrada los Días 5, 6 and 7 de Mayo de 2004 –
Caso de los hermanos Gómez Paquiyauri versus Perú, San Jose, Costa Rica, I-A Ct of HR, 2004, p. 146
(internal distribution).
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