-8adequate and effective remedies must never be diminished. The right to an effective
recourse before the competent national judges or tribunals in the sphere of judicial
protection - to which the 1948 Universal Declaration gave global scope - is much
more relevant that was previously imagined. The obligation of States Parties to
provide such remedies within their national laws and to ensure to all persons subject
to their jurisdiction the guarantee of the free and full exercise of all the rights
embodied in the human rights treaties, and also the guarantees of due process of
law, assume an even greater importance in a continent such as ours (which includes
the three Americas), marked by casuistry, which often deprives the individual of the
law’s protection.
IV.
The irrelevance of the allegation of difficulties arising from domestic
law
22.
It should always be recalled that, when ratifying human rights treaties, the
States Parties assume the general obligation to adapt their domestic laws to the
international protection norms, in addition to the specific obligations relating to each
of the protected rights. The 1969 and 1986 Vienna Conventions on the Law of
Treaties prohibit a Party from invoking the provisions of its internal law as
justification for its failure to perform a treaty (Article 27). This is a principle, above
and beyond the law of treaties, of the law of the State's international responsibility,
firmly established in international case law. According to this case law, the alleged
difficulties arising from domestic law are a simple fact, and do not exempt the States
Parties to international human rights treaties from international responsibility for
failure to comply with the international obligations assumed.18 This basic legallyrecognized principle is duly codified, precisely in Article 27 of the two Vienna
Conventions mentioned above.
23.
Thus, the States in question cannot invoke alleged difficulties or gaps in
domestic law, since they are obliged to harmonize the latter with the provisions of
the human rights treaties to which they are a party (such as the American
Convention on Human Rights, Article 2, and the United Nations Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights, Article 2(2)). Therefore, if they invoke alleged difficulties or gaps
in domestic law for failing to provide simple, prompt and effective domestic remedies
so as to implement effectively the international norms for the protection of human
rights, they are incurring in an additional violation of the human rights treaties to
which they are a party.
V.
The right to an effective recourse in the case law
of the Inter-American Court.
18
.
The case law of both the former Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) indicates that international obligations must be complied with in good faith, and the
State may not invoke provisions of constitutional or domestic law in order to justify failure to comply with
them. PCIJ, Greco-Bulgarian Communities (1930), Series B, No. 17, p. 32; PCIJ, Treatment of Polish Nationals
in the Danzig Territory (1931), Series A/B, No. 44, p. 24; PCIJ, Free Zones of Upper Savory and District of
Gex (1932), Series A/B, No. 46, p. 167; ICJ, Applicability of the Obligation to Arbitrate under Section 21 of the
United Nations Headquarters Agreement, ICJ Reports (1988) p. 31-32, para. 47.
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