Juana Inés Acosta-López’s research while affiliated with University of La Sabana and other places

This paper explores the scope of the standards that the International Human Rights System, particularly the Interamerican System, has developed in connection with the duty of custody, regarding persons who are deprived of their liberty. The authors approach the particular nature of the State's international responsibility on this subject, the scope of the State's responsibility regarding vulnerable populations within the penitentiary establishments, as well as the demands made to the State in order to adapt the penitentiary system in general, in order to guarantee the inmate's human rights.

This paper addresses the important role of the domestic justice in the protection of the right to access to international justice, and in our case the Inter-American justice. Within this purpose, the text explains the existence of a right to an effective international remedy in the Inter-American Human Rights System, and describes some of its peculiarities. Also, it shows the importance of national justice in the effectiveness of the international remedy and addresses certain issues with regard to the implementation of international judgments in the domestic sphere, considering that international rulings are binding and have the same nature of national judicial decisions. Finally, the paper deals with some reflections on possible internal remedies to comply with international rulings in Colombia.

This paper addresses the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, contentious jurisdiction with respect to the Inter-American Treaties, different from the American Convention on Human Rights, IACHR. Does the IACHR have conventional jurisdiction regarding those treaties? Do such treaties support that jurisdiction? Do the Rules of Procedure create such jurisdiction? Analyzing the different legal documents, the author pretends to demonstrate the lack of precision of article 23 of the IACHR' Rules of Procedure, which has created several unnecessary misunderstandings and false expectations on the Inter-American System of Human Rights' actors, especially with respect to the IACHR Contentious Jurisdiction. At the end, the author suggests an amendment of the IACHR' Rules of Procedure, in order to contribute to strengthen the Inter- American Human Rights System and secure the accuracy of its regulations.

This paper addresses one of the major legal issues concerning the debate about the legal value of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): Is the UDHR ius cogens? The authors explain legal problems related to the concept of ius cogens in order to show that the Universal Declaration cannot be classified as an imperative rule of law, even though some of the prohibitions that are implied in the UDHR have this nature. The authors present the dangers of the trivialization of the concept of ius cogens and the importance of preserving its essence as a rule that does not support repeal of any kind and under any circumstances. This paper searches to reject all the interpretations that would unduly expand the content of the concept of ius cogens, which is contained in article 53 of the Vienna Convention.