The Principle of Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies in the Inter-American System of Human Rights; a reasonable obstacle or an impossible barrier?

Abstract

The topic of the thesis is the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies in the Inter-American system of human rights. It asks the question whether the principle is hindering the protection of human rights by the regional commission and court, or whether it is a just barrier, possible to overcome for the majority of the petitioners. To answer this, the thesis first draw up the features of the principle in both international and human rights law, to give the reader an understanding of the principle, its reasons and functions. This includes history, the nature, how and what to fulfil, application and exceptions to the principle. The thesis then has a case study of all the cases deemed inadmissible by the Commission in the last 5 years, looking at numbers of rejected at admissibility, how many due to non-exhaustion, which cases fail the exhaustion principle and why they were rejected. The thesis concludes that the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies, although hindering some case, does not seem to set an unreasonably high bar of admission, but is rather applied with a degree of flexibility, which ensures protection of human rights.