Along with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights serves as the main watchdog for the promotion and protection of fundamental rights in the Americas. Drawing on the case law of the Court, this volume analyses crucial developments over the years on both procedural and substantive issues before the Inter-American Court. The book discusses access to legal aid, third party interventions, positive obligations and provisional measures, the evaluation of evidence and the use of external referencing by the Court, the protection of vulnerable groups, including indigenous peoples, migrants, women and children. It also explores other contemporary issues such as coerced statements, medical negligence, the use of force, amnesties, forced disappearances, the right to water, judicial protection in times of emergency, the relation of the Inter-American Court with national courts and with other international jurisdictions like the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court, and with national courts, reparations and revisions of cases by the Inter-American Court, and present-day challenges to the Inter-American system of human rights. Due to its multifaceted and comprehensive character, this scholarly volume is an essential reference work for both legal scholars and practitioners working with regional human rights systems in general and with the Inter-American human rights system in particular.

Provisional measures are instruments used by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Their purpose is to prevent irreparable harm to the rights and freedoms ensured, under the American Convention on Human Rights, of persons who are in a situation of extreme gravity and urgency. The measures, ordered ex officio or at the request of a party, result in protection offered by the respondent State to alleged victims. Those can include family members of alleged victims, witnesses, journalists, political candidates, human rights defenders, members of indigenous communities, prisoners who live in deplorable conditions, the seriously ill or those on hunger strikes, officials of the justice system, aliens under orders of deportation or extradition, and those sentenced to capital punishment. This does not in any way result in prejudging the merits of the matter before the Inter-American Court. Today, interim measures have a key role in many of the cases that are brought before the Inter-American Human Rights System. Surely, neither the judges, academia, nor the international community in general had imagined the dimensions that this institution would acquire in the jurisprudence over the years. This book analyzes the complete case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights with regard to provisional measures. It deals with the jurisdiction of the Court - ratione personae, materiae, temporis, and loci - to order such measures and the admissibility questions respectively. This is followed by an analysis of the evidentiary issues, the processing of the request for provisional measures, the delay within which interim measures are usually adopted by the Court, and the duration of the measures. Finally, the legal nature of the provisional measures and the legal consequences in case of incompliance by States are examined, as well as the compliance rate and the factors that may be considered the main obstacles to some measures being effective. This study exalts the work of the measures and explores responses so that they might better meet their function of protecting rights effectively. Beyond its academic value, the book has a practical utility - a social visibility. It is an invitation to each individual to get acquainted with the power that the case law of the Inter-American Court has given to the figure of interim measures, which, as a useful tool, has the virtue of avoiding the irreparable violation of rights in situations of extreme gravity and urgency.

This book brings together leading authorities from the fields of international human rights law, criminology, legal medicine, and political science with international human rights judges and UN experts to analyze the current situation of detainees in Europe, the Americas and Africa. This comprehensive volume offers a platform for reflecting on the complexity of the prison problem from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors address detention-related issues with the aim of generating new ideas that contribute to both academic discussion and critical analysis. Academic dialogue across the globe provides insights into various national and international carceral systems and how they deal with human rights behind bars. At the same time, the critical comparison helps to identify basic needs and practices that can work in multiple settings. The contributors are respected experts and leading scholars in their fields, and each has pursued prison and human rights research over the last decades. However, this is the first time that they have come together in a multidisciplinary academic project. This book aims to stimulate diverse actors to imagine alternative ways of engaging with persons deprived of their liberty, in academia and in practice.