Translation of: La convención americana : teoría y jurisprudencia : vida, integridad personal, libertad personal, debido proceso y recurso judicial.

Includes bibliographical references.

General legal framework -- Right to life -- Right to humane treatment -- Right to personal liberty -- Right to due process -- Principle of legality, freedom from ex post facto laws and right to compensation for miscarriage of justice -- Right to judicial protection.

This study contains in-depth analyses and commentary on five basic rights protected under the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights in the light of the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights - namely the rights to life, to personal freedom, to personal integrity, to due process of law, and to a judicial remedy. Violations of these basic rights formed the majority of complaints before the Court at a time when many of the contracting States had either just left, or were still immersed in a dictatorship. In addition to the analysis of the Inter-American Court's judgments on these rights, the European and the universal jurisprudence have also been taken into consideration (both the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations started their activities much earlier). In the analysis and interpretation of the five basic rights, use has been made of the travaux preparatoires of the Inter-American Convention, mainly to show the lack of professionalism shown by the drafters during the debates and the lack of information in the minutes of the Specialized Convention. The book presents the beginnings of the Inter-American Court and its hesitant steps in developing its position on the five basic rights that constituted the subject of the majority of the cases that reached the Court, along with States in the background attempting to introduce the idea of human rights in a democratic society into their own legal systems. It poses many questions upon which the Court should reflect in future cases and criticizes some of the Court's judgments for their shortcomings and lack of consistency.