Human rights courts and global constitutionalism: Coordination through judicial dialogue

Abstract

International courts regularly cite each other, partly as a means of building legitimacy. This study aims to show that judicial dialogue among the regional human rights courts and the Human Rights Committee has an additional effect: it contributes to the construction of a rights-based global constitutionalism. Judicial dialogue among the human rights courts is purposeful because the courts see themselves as embedded in, and contributing to, a global human rights legal system. Cross-citation among the human rights courts advances the construction of rights-based global constitutionalism in that it provides a basic degree of coordination among the regional courts. The jurisprudence of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC), as an authoritative interpreter of core international human rights norms, plays the role of a central focal point for the decentralized coordination of jurisprudence. Using original data, this study demonstrates the extent of citations among the regional human rights courts and from them to the HRC. The network of regional courts and the HRC is building an emergent institutional structure for global rights-based constitutionalism.