More transparency on regional human rights courts? What we (still) need to know to understand and access regional human rights justice

Abstract Regional human rights courts operate in a way that is only partially open to scrutiny from the outside. Rules of procedure are available to read, but researchers and practitioners know very little about what happens inside the courtroom and how judges make their final deliberations. This article focuses on the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and explores three particular and overlooked aspects of their functioning: the role of the secretariats, third-party submissions, and the contribution of individual judges in courts’ deliberations. Comparing best practices and lessons learned from the three systems, the article recommends some measures to improve transparency from the perspective of potential applicants and researchers trying to understand the adjudication of regional human rights systems.