ABSTRACT

The main regional human rights systems have played a role legitimating a particular international order characterized by globalized trade, and their influence has spread apace with free market democracies. Now, however, the American-led world order is under challenge, and the role of these systems may change. The prospect of neo-Westphalia, in other words, requires us to think these human rights systems anew. We must return to the study of geopolitics, and examine how larger political trends shape their development. This essay revisits the body of legal and socio-legal scholarship on the Inter-American System, with reference to scholarship on regional human rights in Europe, both to examine how it can be re-cast to inform new questions posed by the changing world order, and to consider what questions it has failed to ask.