The Inter-American Court of human rights and the protection of lgbti rights: Building an Ius Constitutionale Commune based on diversity

Abstract

The main advances related to the recognition of rights of the LGBTI population, within the scope of International Human Rights Law, result from the jurisprudential evolution of international organizations, considering the States lack of willingness to adopt treaties and conventions on the subject. In this context, the present article faces the following problem: how can the Inter-American Court of Human Rights promote the realization of LGBTI rights? Therefore, the general objective is to analyze how this Court, which has a wide jurisdiction over the countries of Latin America, contributes to the consolidation of a regional constitutionalism committed to equality, diversity and the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The research adopts the deductive method and is developed in a descriptive and exploratory way, through bibliographic and jurisprudential review. In the end, it concludes that the San José Court has been establishing relevant standards for the protection of those individuals that are vilified by expressing sexualities or identities dissenting from the dominant social heteronormative pattern, collaborating for a process of paradigmatic change of hegemonic heterosexual and cisnormative patterns in Latin American societies.