Giving Due Consideration: A Normative Pathway between UN Human Rights Treaty-Monitoring Bodies and Domestic Courts

Abstract

This chapter analyses normative pathways that guide the deliberative space involving UN human rights treaty-monitoring bodies and domestic courts. Judges vary in terms of their degree of engagement with treaty body findings. This chapter highlights that international law itself provides a set of justifications that sustain varied modes of judicial engagement. One such justification pertains to an obligation to consider the specific findings of treaty-monitoring bodies. Before domestic courts, explicit reference to such an obligation is rare. Yet normative variations of the obligation to consider have guided domestic courts’ engagement to treaty body findings. The duty to consider and its variations may not create robust normative paths. Nevertheless, they arguably pave the way for a sustainable and forward-looking deliberative space by creating the opportunities for learning and self-reflection for both the monitoring bodies and domestic courts.