Structural Remedies as Policy Making: Data, Rationales and Opportunities of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

This chapter provides an in-depth description of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ role as a policy maker through its structural remedies, the alternative ways in which it intervenes from a public policy perspective, and the possible rationales that justify why it intervenes one way or another. Using the public policy cycle as a roadmap for this classification, the chapter concludes that the Inter-American Court has intervened in policy cycles through agenda setting, policy formulation, ordering policy implementation or requiring policy evaluation, favoring the second of these alternatives. The Court’s rationales, on the other hand, are more elusive. It seems that variables such as the year the decision was issued, the State responsible, participation of certain victim’s counsel, among others, contribute directly to the Court’s decision of how it is going to design its structural remedy. These conclusions argue in favor of the need of further research on possible public policy tools that the Court could incorporate when issuing structural remedies, the role of the litigating parties in incorporating a policy perspective in their legal strategies, and possible alternatives to the Court’s practices to favor an improved policy intervention.