Equality and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: what is the Ideology?

Abstract: This works analyzes the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in connection with equality and non-discrimination. The thesis has two major parts. The first part discusses a possible pattern or standard to predict the results of the Inter-American Court in connection with equality and non-discrimination. The author revised cases from this Court in order to predict when the Court will find that certain behaviour violates the rights to equality and non-discrimination of the American Convention of Human Rights. The work claims that the identificacion by the Court of certain groups as “vulnerable” is the key to find a violation of the rights to equality and non-discrimination. The second part aims to make a theoretical analysis in connection with these findings. The author studies what are the possible ideological constructions that can be found in the Court’s jurisprudence. This part uses concepts and ideas developed by Slavoj Žižek in relation to Ideology. After explaining what is ideology for Žižek, the author analyzes if this ideology as constructed by Žižek is present in the work of the Court. The theoretical analysis is done trough three sections. The first section analyzes ideological constructions found in the work of the Inter-American Court. The second attempts to explain the ideological constructions found in the Court’s jurisprudence connected with equality and non-discrimination. The last chapter analyzes the ideology found in the research and claims put forward in the first section of the thesis.