Comparative regional human rights regimes: defining a research agenda

Abstract

This article introduces the Comparative Regional Human Rights Regimes Symposium which marks a first attempt at a regime-level comparative analysis of the three main regional human rights courts and commissions. It does so with the aim of laying out why regime level comparative analysis matters and why access, interpretation and remedies offer core markers of a comparative research agenda. The article identifies three distinct contributions that regional comparison makes to comparative international human rights law. First, it allows us to go beyond the binary form that is prevalent in comparative human rights law scholarship that most often juxtaposes (selected elements of) the European and Inter-American human rights regimes, and less frequently the African-Inter-American, or African-European human rights regimes. Second, a comparative research agenda goes beyond existing scholarship on regional comparison that has been largely descriptive in character. Taking a holistic approach to regional human rights regimes, comparisons can be made over time and dynamics of divergences and convergences can be identified and explained. Third, a comparative research agenda allows us to locate regional human rights regimes as part of a more general global evolution of law and institutions. That is, through comparison, we are better placed to evaluate how regional human rights courts and commissions are inscribed in a broader development of regional and international law since the aftermath of World War II.