Judges of the Regional Human Rights Courts : Comparison as a source of inspiration for Human Rights Court for Oceania
Abstract
The chapter compares rules for appointing judges of European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. The African human rights court displays the most differences, because it was established before rather short time and it works with a limited budget.
Its judges, except for the chairman, work only part-time, which may slow down the work of the court. The Statute of the African court emphasizes gender and regional equality in regard to appointment of judges.
However, it may be difficult to achieve this equality because the elections are secret. The guarantees of judges' independence are similar for all of the compared courts.
The chapter concluded that the comparison of rules could inspire human rights court for Oceania, which various organizations intend to establish. Nonetheless, potential judges of this hypothetical court should possess specialization also in environmental law and states should be allowed to nominate non-citizen candidates for the judges' positions.