Garcia Maia T (2025)
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2025
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Edited Volumes: Equality's Guardians: How Courts Conceptualize Equal Protection and Non-Discrimination Guarantees
ISBN: 9780198961109
DOI: 10.1093/9780198961109.003.0010
This chapter analyzes the equality case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) regarding Articles 1 and 24 of the American Convention of Human Rights. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, the chapter introduces the Court’s equality test implementing the protection granted to equality and non-discrimination in the ACHR. Subsequently, it presents the results of an empirical analysis of the Court’s equality case law. The analysis shows that the IACtHR is following a very non-deferential approach. Most of the cases involve suspect classifications and they have a remarkably high success rate. There are significantly fewer cases that do not involve a suspect classification, but even here the success rate is substantive. Most notably, however, the Court derives positive obligations to protect vulnerable groups from the guarantees of equality and non-discrimination in many cases. For this reason, the chapter classifies the Court as adhering to the positive equality model. The last part of the chapter discusses key influences that explain the Court’s equality jurisprudence and the patterns identified in the empirical analysis.
APA:
Garcia Maia, T. (2025). Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In Niels Petersen (Eds.), Equality's Guardians: How Courts Conceptualize Equal Protection and Non-Discrimination Guarantees. Oxford University Press.
MLA:
Garcia Maia, Taina. "Inter-American Court of Human Rights." Equality's Guardians: How Courts Conceptualize Equal Protection and Non-Discrimination Guarantees. Ed. Niels Petersen, Oxford University Press, 2025.
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