Regional Human Rights Courts

Declarations

San José Declaration

Joint Declaration of the Presidents of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the entry into force of the American Convention on Human Rights and the creation of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights was signed on 18 July 2018. A second Declaration was signed on 26 May 2023 on the occasion of the 3rd International Human Rights Forum held in San José.

Declaration of San José Declaration of San José II

Kampala Declaration

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights at the First International Human Rights Forum on 28 to 29 October 2019 signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the three courts to operationalize the International Human Rights Forum.

Kampala Declaration
Speech by Angelika Nußberger

Seminars & Conferences

Third International Human Rights Forum

On 25-26 May 2023 President Síofra O’Leary attended the 3rd International Human Rights Forum held at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in San José, Costa Rica. She was accompanied by Arnfinn Bårdsen, Section President, and Judges María Elósegui, Darian Pavli and Anja Seibert-Fohr.

Judges from the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights who took part in the Forum exchanged views on the following topics: judicial independence and rule of law; and environment, climate change, and human rights. The delegation of the Court also attended a public seminar on the topic Regional systems of human rights protection and their challenges, where President O’Leary intervened.

A second Declaration of San José was signed on the occasion on 26 May 2023.

Second International Human Rights Forum

The ECHR, with the support of the German Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, has organised on 25 March 2021 the second International Human Rights Forum.
Judges from the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights exchanged views on current issues, areas of specific concern or priority and case-law developments in the three courts.
The event took place by video-link and the video is now available.

Programme

Video of the Forum: Original language - English - Spanish

Dialogue between Human Rights Courts

The European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights have held their first online Dialogue on the impact of Covid-19 on Human Rights.

This Dialogue between the three regional Human Rights Courts took place on 9 July 2020 and is part of the ongoing cooperation between these Courts, in the context of the San José Declaration (2018) and the Kampala Declaration (2019).

Video of the online Dialogue

Seminar organised by the ECHR and the IACtHR

A seminar organised jointly by the Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the subject of adjudicating large-scale human rights violations was held at the Court on 9 November 2018.
Three panels addressed the topics of fact-finding and cooperation with respondent Governments, enforced disappearances, and international humanitarian law.

Official visit by a delegation of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

From 20 to 23 October 2014, a delegation of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights visited the Court, headed by its President, Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto. On 20 and 21 October the visiting judges took part in roundtable discussions with Judges of the Court, members of the Registry and members of the Venice Commission.

Publications

Joint Law Report by AfCHPR, ECHR and IACHR

This report is the product of the cooperation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that have built a solid judicial dialogue.

2021 2020 2019