Tristan Calvayrac – The Politicization of the Inter-American Human Rights System in Peru

Peru and the Court

With 64 rulings in adversarial cases published by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights [IACtHR], Peru has by far been the state most subject to the body’s rulings.¹ It counts substantially more judgments than Ecuador, the next most impacted country, with its 44. These decisions have included landmark cases for the protection of human rights in Peru and across the Americas. For instance, in 2001, the Barrios Altos v. Peru case ruled that amnesty laws pronounced in favour of members of the armed forces for their human rights violations during Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict were contrary to the American Convention on Human Rights [ACHR].² This case fundamentally shaped post-conflict accountability in Peru and across the continent, but like many others of the court’s decisions, it has been politically contentious.

This repeated supranational intervention in the Peruvian judicial system has generated strong criticism from populist politicians who have vocally opposed the court. These critics condemn its influence on Peru and frequently threaten to “withdraw Peru from the court’s jurisdiction”. Peru came close to such a withdrawal in 1999 when Alberto Fujimori declared he was withdrawing Peru from the court’s “contentious jurisdiction” [its ability to rule on adversarial cases between the party state and a plaintiff].³ However, in Ivcher Bronstein vs. Perú, the IACtHR determined it was not possible for a country to only withdraw from that specific jurisdictional component. In the court’s view, the only way for a state to withdraw would be to entirely renounce its adherence to the ACHR, thus making Fujimori’s attempted withdrawal invalid and ineffective.⁴ However, Fujimori’s failure did not bury the issue, and withdrawal remains a frequent threat by populists. Most notably, Peru’s newly elected president, Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the aforementioned and now-deceased Alberto Fujimori, announced during her presidential campaign that she would withdraw Peru from the court if elected.⁵ While reports have emerged suggesting she has backtracked on her position and no longer intends withdrawal, the matter remains in flux.⁶ 

This enmity towards the court’s jurisdiction relates in part to the phenomenon discussed in my previous blog post, namely the inclination of certain actors to reject a universal notion of human rights. Here, these actors typically accuse the court of protecting criminals through its rulings and interpretation of the ACHR. For instance, former mayor of Lima and presidential candidate Rafael Lopez Aliaga stated that he would order Peru’s immediate withdrawal from what he calls the “Inter-American Court of Inhuman Rights”, claiming that it only benefits terrorists and criminals.⁷ Indeed, according to my colleagues, there is a perception among right-wing populists that the court voluntarily protects terrorists by persecuting the Peruvian state for its counter-insurgency response during the internal armed conflict. This relates to a wider trend in Peruvian politics whereby certain parts of the populist right repeatedly deflect from the atrocities and violations committed by state agents in the context of the internal armed conflict. This is despite the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation finding that 37% of deaths in the conflict were inflicted by state and state-aligned actors.⁸

In Peru, it is mainly right-wing actors who attack the court, viewing it as a source of malignant leftist influence that persecutes the military for their fight against the communist Shining Path terror group. However, in Venezuela, the ACHR was renounced by Chavez’s left-wing populist regime, which saw the court as a source of malign American neoliberal influence.⁹ This illustrates that the issue is not strictly left-right divided, but rather common to populist regimes in the region.

Peruvian Cases in the Court Today

Is this feeling of excessive focus on the internal armed conflict in any way legitimate today? Certainly, historically, a great number of cases related to it, including the aforementioned landmark Barrios Altos case. However, I do not think this is currently the case. Part of my internship consisted of reviewing petitions found by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to constitute a violation of the rights guaranteed by Inter-American treaties, which had thus been transferred to the IACtHR, soliciting its jurisdiction over party states to remedy this violation.

Of the 11 cases I analyzed, 9 were unrelated to the internal armed conflict and instead encompassed a wide variety of issues. These included: Pueblos Indígenas Mashco Piro, Yora y Amahuaca vs. Perú, which sought the administrative reclassification of certain territories in the Peruvian Amazon in order to better protect the Pueblos Indígenas en Situación de Aislamiento y Contacto Inicial [Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact] living there;¹⁰ Karen Mañuca Quiroz Cabanillas vs. Perù, which focused on the violation of a transgender plaintiff’s rights through a state agency’s refusal to deliver them identity documents with their chosen name;¹¹ Trabajadores cesados de PETROPERU vs. Perù, which is part of a series of cases brought before courts in recent decades surrounding workers’ rights violations that occurred in the mass layoffs of public sector workers in the 1990s after Alberto Fujimori took power, and many others.¹² The remaining 2 cases, Flor de Maria Patricia Andia Neira y otros vs. Perù and Gamboa García y otros vs. Perù, did focus on human rights violations during the IAC, but again did not constitute a majority of the cases currently being processed by the system.¹³

With this in mind, what can I say about the current opposition to the court in Peru? Atrocity denial surrounding the armed conflict, and opposition to the court’s work in bringing these events to light, certainly play a major role. However, as seen, these cases are a minority in the court’s current Peruvian docket. Beyond this, I believe this opposition is also linked to the broader tension between national sovereignty and supranational rights protection

National Sovereignty and Supranational Rights Protection

Peru is not the only country to have attempted withdrawal but later been rebuked by the court itself. Venezuela first renounced the ACHR in 2013 in order to exit the court’s jurisdiction.¹⁴ However, in 2019, Juan Guaido re-ratified the ACHR while he was acting as president with partial recognition.¹⁵ The Chavist elements of the government, and their anti-ACHR stance, later retook full control; Yet in 2025, the IACtHR found in Chirinos Salamanca y otros vs. Venezuela that Guaido’s re-ratification was legitimate, effective, and with retroactive effect to the 2013 renunciation.¹⁶ This means that the court is reasserting its jurisdiction over Venezuela despite the current government’s clear opposition. Nicaragua also faces an unclear situation regarding the IACtHR’s jurisdiction. In 2021, the Ortega regime notified the Organization of American States (under which the IACtHR operates) of Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the organization, without explicitly denouncing the ACHR.¹⁷ While this does not actually withdraw Nicaragua from the court’s jurisdiction, Managua has acted as if it does, and “systematically failed” to comply with measures ordered by the court.¹⁸ To date, Trinidad and Tobago is the only country to have officially and successfully withdrawn from the court’s jurisdiction.¹⁹

This capacity of the court to overturn the manifest will of the state does raise questions about national sovereignty. However, in these cases, such a supersession would be justifiable in the name of liberal internationalism. These attempted withdrawals were conducted by the authoritarian leaders of repressive states. Maintaining Peru under the court’s jurisdiction has proved invaluable and critical in protecting the rights of Peruvians against state abuse, and the vast body of jurisprudence flowing from Peruvian cases since has been critical in propelling the Inter-American Human Rights System forward.

The Inter-American Human Rights System is not unique among international and regional court systems in the criticism it faces. The International Criminal Court has long been criticized as a unilateral tool of the global north for the persecution of foreign leaders, and today faces renewed criticism by many global powers, including the US and Russia.²⁰ In Europe, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) also faces frequent attacks by politicians in its member countries, for what they consider the subversion of national judicial sovereignty.²¹ The full discussion of these issues lies beyond the ambit of this piece, but they shed some light on the fact that the IACtHR’s issues are commonplace across international court systems and are one of the great challenges facing these institutions today.

1.  “Sentencias”, Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, August 20, 2026, https://www.corteidh.or.cr/casos_sentencias.cfm. ↩︎
2.  Stefano Brugnatelli, “Barrios Altos Case”, Oxford Public International Law, last modified September 2009, https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1801. ↩︎
3. Miriam Tovar Parada and Gonzalo Ugarte Gaita, “Perú y la Corte IDH: cronología de desacatos y el debate sobre una posible salida”, IDEHPUCP, September 2, 2025, https://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/boletin-eventos/peru-y-la-corte-idh-cronologia-de-desacatos-y-el-debate-sobre-una-posible-salida/. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Luis Paucar, “Keiko Fujimori retrocede y ya no plantea el retiro de Perú de la Corte IDH como prometió en campaña, según Yehude Simon”, Infobae, July 6, 2026, www.infobae.com/peru/2026/07/10/keiko-fujimori-retrocede-y-ya-no-plantea-el-retiro-de-peru-de-la-corte-idh-como-prometio-en-campana-segun-yehude-simon/. ↩︎
6. Ibid. ↩︎
7. Panamericana TV, “Rafael López Aliaga sobre la CIDH: “Ganan solamente los defensores de terrucos y sicarios”,  Panamericana TV, June 11, 2025, https://panamericana.pe/24horas/politica/457916-rafael-lopez-aliaga-cidh-ganan-defensores-terrucos-sicarios. ↩︎
8. Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, Hatun Willakuy : Versión Abreviada del Informe Final de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (Lima, Perú: Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, 2004), 19. ↩︎
9. Rachael Boothroyd, “Chavez Announces ‘Immediate’ Withdrawal from Inter-American Court of Human Rights”, Venezuelanalysis, July 27, 2012, https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7131/. ↩︎
10. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Caso Nº 13.572 Pueblos Indígenas Mashco Piro, Yora y Amahuaca Vs. Perú (2024), https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/Corte/2024/PE_13.572_NdeREs.PDF. ↩︎
11. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Caso Nº 13.624 Karen Mañuca Quiroz Cabanillas Vs. Perù (2026), https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/Corte/2026/PE_13.624_NdeREs.PDF. ↩︎
12. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Caso Nº 11.602B Trabajadores cesados de PETROPERU Vs. Perù (2025), https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/Corte/2025/PE_11.602%20B_NdeREs.PDF. ↩︎
13. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Caso Nº 12.964 Gamboa García y otros Vs. Perù (2023), https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/corte/2023/PE_12.964_NdeREs.PDF; Inter-American Court of Human Rights, “Informe Annual 2023”, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 41, https://www.corteidh.or.cr/sitios/informes/docs/SPA/spa_2023.pdf. ↩︎
14. Carlos D. Briceño et al., “The Jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights over Venezuela: The Judgment on Preliminary Objections in the Case ‘Chirinos, Salamanca et al.’”, Due Process of Law Foundation, September 23, 2025, https://dplf.org/en/2025/09/23/the-jurisdiction-of-the-inter-american-court-of-human-rights-over-venezuela-the-judgment-on-preliminary-objections-in-the-case-chirinos-salamanca-et-al/. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Ibid. ↩︎
17. Simón Gómez-Guaimara and Thairi Moya Sánchez, “ Nicaragua: Can International Law Break the Cycle of Impunity?”, OpinioJuris, July 28, 2025, https://opiniojuris.org/2025/07/28/nicaragua-can-international-law-break-the-cycle-of-impunity/. ↩︎
18. Ibid. ↩︎
19. Tovar Parada and Ugarte Gaita, “Perú y la Corte IDH”. ↩︎
20. Le Monde, “The International Criminal Court, an imperfect but essential safeguard against impunity”, Le Monde, July 16, 2026, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/07/16/the-international-criminal-court-an-imperfect-but-essential-safeguard-against-impunity_6755538_23.html. ↩︎
21. Jan Petrov, “The populist challenge to the European Court of Human Rights,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 18, no. 2 (July 2020): 477. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moaa027. ↩︎