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LAW 783J - Jurisprudence of Human Rights (Prof. Perry Fall 2022)

Resources for Multiple Courts by Topic

Oxford Reports on International Law includes full-text international decisions on human rights from international courts, domestic courts, and the UN human rights tribunals. Browse options include subject (with a long list of subtopics), jurisdiction, and state party. The Oxford Law Citator provides citations to documents and related citing cases and documents.

Oxford International Organizations: Key primary documents of international organizations with commentary. Includes judgments and rules of international courts.  Articles include links to journal articles and materials cited and the Oxford Law Citator

Resourcing Rights: Database supporting research on human rights, with judicial documents, UN documents, articles, and commentary. 

CODICES Database of Constitutional caselaw from the Venice Commission and the Council of Europe. Includes constitutions, laws, and court decisions from countries of the world . There’s an alphabetical index and a search function

WorldCourts.com: Searches caselaw of multiple international courts and tribunals, including the UN treaty bodies. Refine search results by court. 

UNHCR Refworld (UN Refugee Agency): Reports and policy documents from the UN, governmental organizations, NGOs, and academic institutions on human rights and humanitarian law topics. Refworld includes national caselaw and legislation related to refugees and asylum, and country profiles and reports. Search, or browse by country, author organization, or topic.

International Justice Resource Center: News, court calendars, reports, and documents of cases currently before the UN tribunals.

United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies

Human Rights Treaty Bodies

Committees of independent experts monitor implementation of the UN's core human rights treaties (CCPR, ICERD, ICESCR, ICCPR, and others). They consider the state party periodic reports, draft reports and observations on human rights situations by country, receive individual peritions, and conduct inquiries. 

Human Rights Instruments: Subject and alphabetical lists with links

UN Treaty Body Database: Find documents, ratification status, procedures, reports

Treaty Body Documents and Reports:

Their documents include core documents, concluding observations, country visits reports, the Universal Periodic Review (peer review), states party reports, and jurisprudence (individual complaint resolution). Reports document human rights abuses and concerns, and the country's steps to implement the human rights treaties, including legislation, caselaw, and agency information.

UN Treaty Bodies Search: Find documents by state, committee, document type, and date.

Universal Human Rights Index: Country-specific information from the Treaty Bodies, Special Procedures, and Universal Periodic Review. Search for observations and recommendations by country, mechanism, human rights themes, concerned persons or groups, or by full-text search.

UNOHCHR Topics page:  Find major topic areas in human rights with UN Human Rights reports, publications, and interested UN treaty bodies and working groups. 

Jurisprudence

Individuals may bring complaints about violations of their rights under the human rights treaties through the UN Treaty Bodies.  Not all treaty body complaint mechanisms have entered into force.

OHCHR Jurisprudence database: Use the Detailed search to search individual complaints from the treaty bodies by treaty body, treaty article, state, issue, or keyword.

CCPR Centre Database: Jurisprudence database specific to the Human Rights Committee with filters by country, article, and keywords. 

Individual Complaints: States that have accepted individual complaints procedures

Information on complaints and inquiries on human rights violations

Complaint Procedure under the Human Rights Council

 

European Court of Human Rights

European Convention on Human Rights: One of the conventions of the Council of Europe. Officially, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. 

European Court of Human Rights: Enforcement of the European Convention on Human Rights

HUDOC database: Judgments of the ECt.HR. Includes a search by treaty article, keyword, domestic law, or international law

The European Court of Human Rights websiteHearing calendars, webcasts, Official Texts, recent and forthcoming judgments and decisions

ECtHR Factsheets by Topic: Include citations to articles in the Convention and summaries with links to major cases in HUDOC

 

Inter-American Human Rights System

Instruments of the Inter-American System: Including the American Convention on Human Rights

Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Regional court which interprets and enforces the American Convention on Human Rights

Inter-American Court of Human Rights: The court's website has jurisprudence to search, or use the digest (in Spanish) by treaty article.

Loyola IACHR Project: Case search and cases arranged by country, topic, and article violation, with summaries in English

Organization of American States: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: A separate body from the court, with reports monitoring the human rights situation in member states and an individual petition system.  

Commission Reports by country or theme

Commission Cases based on individual petitions

African Regional Human Rights System

African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights: Created by the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights Protocol 1. 33 states have ratified the protocol, but only 8 have recognized the competence of the Court to receive individual cases. Cases can be brought by NGOS or individuals. Find judgments, decisions, and orders. The African Court Law Reports are arranged by topic and treaty article. 

African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights: Implementation and interpretation of the African Charter, and protection of human and peoples' rights. Find state reports and activity reports. ​

Other International Courts with Jurisprudence on Human Rights

International Criminal Court: Cases against individuals for serious international crimes.

International Court of Justice: Disputes between states, some related to international criminal and human rights law.

European Court of Justice. Enforcement of European Union legislation, including on free movement, equal treatment, and fundamental rights. Search for cases by subject matter, or by references to EU legislation or caselaw. 

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