English - Alliance Defending Freedom Media

4
Latin America, located in Ciudad de México, and has presented amicus curiae briefs before
several Latin-American courts, including the Supreme Courts of Mexico and Argentina, and also
the Inter-American Court.
The Center for Legal Studies is a program of C-FAM, a non-partisan, non-profit research
institute founded in the summer of 1997. C-FAM is an NGO dedicated to monitor and affect
the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions, in order to
protect and promote goods such as the dignity of the human person. C-FAM’s personnel have
participated in every major UN social policy debate since 1997 including the Rome Statutes of
the International Criminal Court, the Convention on Disabilities, Cairo+5, and dozens of others.
AUL is a nonprofit public-interest law and policy organization promoting a vision in
which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law. Founded in 1971, it was the first
national United States organization of this kind. AUL’s aim is pursued through vigorous
legislative, judicial and educational efforts at the state, national and international levels. AUL’s
experts usually feature in newspapers, magazines and TV networks across the United States.
1. Interpreting Article 4(1) in Relation to the Unborn Child
The Inter-American tribunal has referred many times to the rules of interpretation of the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties as (VCLT) guiding its interpretation of the Pact of
San José. 7 The VCLT sets out not only the criteria by which a norm must be interpreted, but
also the precedence which must be given to each of them. However, some interpretations of
Article 4(1) have had “major problems ari[sing] largely as a result of . . . . ignoring the existence
of the canons of interpretation codified by the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties.” 8
Thus, this brief of amici curiae will follow the principles established in this source of international
law, which require interpretations to be carried out in good faith and by analyzing “the terms of
7 This system has been used since the Court’s early days, e.g. Restrictions to the Death Penalty (arts. 4(2)
and 4(4) American Convention on Human Rights), Advisory Opinion OC-3/83, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 3,
48 (Sept. 24, 1982), and still continues, e.g. Article 55 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Advisory
Opinion OC-20/09, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 20, 23 (Sept. 29, 2009). The relevant rules of the Vienna
Convention are established in arts. 31-33. Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (1969)
[hereinafter “Vienna Convention” or “VCLT”].
8 Dinah Shelton, Abortion and the Right to Life in the Inter-American System: The Case of “Baby Boy”, 2 HUM. RTS.
L.J. 309, 313 (1981).