3
enshrined therein, the autonomous meaning (in relation to the
domestic law of the States) of the terms of such treaties, the collective
guarantee underlying them, the wide scope of the obligations of
protection and the restrictive interpretation of permissible restrictions.
These elements converge in sustaining the integrity of human rights
treaties, in seeking the fulfilment of their object and purpose, and,
accordingly, in establishing limits to State voluntarism. From all this
one can detect a new vision of the relations between public power and
the human being, which is summed up, ultimately, in the recognition
that the State exists for the human being, and not vice-versa" 5.
9.
Another aspect to be here recalled is that of the autonomous meaning of the
terms of human rights treaties (as distinct from their meaning, e.g., in domestic law).
The point, stressed by the Human Rights Committee (under the U.N. Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights) in the adoption of its views in the Van Duzen versus Canada
case (in 1982), has also been taken up by the two regional - European and InterAmerican - Courts of Human Rights. The European Court has endorsed the doctrine of
autonomous interpretation in its judgments, for example, in the Ringeisen (1971),
König (1978) and Le Compte (1981 and 1983) cases. The Inter-American Court, in its
turn, in its sixth Advisory Opinion, on The Word "Laws" in Article 30 of the American
Convention on Human Rights (1986), clarified that the word "laws" in Article 30 of the
American Convention, to be examined in accordance not only with the principle of
legality but also with that of legitimacy, means a juridical norm of a general character,
turned to the "general welfare", emanated from the legislative organs constitutionally
foreseen and democratically elected, and elaborated according to the procedure for
law-making established by the Constitutions of States Parties.
10.
Moreover, the dynamic or evolutive interpretation of the respective human
rights Conventions (the intertemporal dimension) has been followed by both the
European Court 6 and the Inter-American Court7, so as to fulfil the changing needs of
protection of the human being; in its sixteenth and pioneering Advisory Opinion, on
The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees
of the Due Process of Law (1999), which has inspired the international case-law in
statu nascendi on the matter, the Inter-American Court has clarified that, in its
interpretation of the norms of the American Convention, it should extend protection in
new situations (such as that concerning the observance of the right to information on
consular assistance) on the basis of pre-existing rights. The same vision has been
propounded by the Inter-American Court in its subsequent forward-looking eighteenth
Advisory Opinion, on the Juridical Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants
(2003).
5
. IACtHR, Blake versus Guatemala case (Reparations), Judgment of 22.01.1999, Series C, n. 48, Separate
Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade, pp. 52-53, par. 33, and cf. pars. 32-34.
6
. E.g., cases Tyrer versus United Kingdom (1978), Airey versus Ireland (1979), Marckx versus Belgium
(1979), Dudgeon versus United Kingdom (1981), among others.
7
. Cf., in this sense, the obiter dicta in: Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), Advisory Opinion
OC-10/89, on the Interpretation of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man in the
Framework of Article 64 of the American Convention on Human Rights, of 14.07.1989, pars. 37-38; IACtHR,
Advisory Opinion OC-16/99, on the Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the
Guarantees of the Due Process of Law, of 01.10.1999, pars. 114-115, and Concurring Opinion of Judge A.A.
Cançado Trindade, pars. 9-11; IACtHR, case of the "Street Children" (Villagrán Morales and Others versus
Guatemala), Judgment (on the merits) of 19.11.1999, pars. 193-194; IACtHR, case Cantoral Benavides
versus Peru, Judgment (on the merits) of 18.08.2000, pars. 99 and 102-103; IACtHR, case Bámaca
Velásquez versus Guatemala, Judgment (on the merits) of 25.11.2000, Individual Opinion of Judge A.A.
Cançado Trindade, pars. 34-38; IACtHR, case of the Community Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni versus
Nicaragua, Judgment (on the merits and reparations) of 31.08.2001, pars. 148-149; IACtHR, case Bámaca
Velásquez versus Guatemala, Judgment (on reparations) of 22.02.2002, Individual Opinion of Judge A.A.
Cançado Trindade, par. 3.
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