Mapping the Cross-Border Influence of Regional and International Reproductive Rights Cases

Abstract

Abstract International and regional human rights mechanisms are essential tools for ensuring access to justice for human rights violations and advancing measures of non-repetition, such as domestic law and policy reform. Scholarship on the impacts of these mechanisms have largely centred on the resulting domestic law and policy reform in the countries at issue in these cases and the resulting normative standards human rights bodies have established. The cross-fertilization of these cases among other international and regional human rights mechanisms and domestic courts remains an important but underexplored aspect of how such cases influence progress towards the realization of human rights. Through the lens of four landmark cases on sexual and reproductive health and rights, this article examines the influence of these cases in jurisprudence from across the globe, demonstrating how such decisions have reverberated across borders. These rippling effects of strategic litigation constitute an important impact that should be taken into account when evaluating the influence and efficacy of these mechanisms.