The Inter-American court of human rights’ engagement with international human rights instruments: an analysis of environmental protection jurisprudence

Abstract

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has become one of the most liberal courts in identification and elaboration of environmental protection of international human rights law. The American Convention on Human rights has not yet explicitly established the right to a healthy environment, however, the Court has understood the traditional civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights through the prism of the changing international human rights and environmental tools. The Court has used treaties, declarations, and principles of soft law to develop a preventative, participatory, and rights-oriented environmental framework through advisory opinions and contentious cases, especially those that concern the Indigenous and tribal communities. The paper is a critical analysis of the IACtHR jurisprudence in relation to environmental protection with the consideration of how international human rights instruments have been incorporated within the judicial rationale. Through the review of landmark cases that include Awas Tingni, Saramaka, Yakye Axa, Kaliyna and Lokono, and Advisory Opinion OC-23/17, the research paper has shown that the Court has changed environmental protection into a human rights issue that can be subject to judiciary. This paper states that the involvement of the international instruments by the Court has played a significant role in the development of the environmental human rights law and provides an effective example to global adjudication of human rights issues.