The President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), Judge Elizabeth Odio Benito, inaugurated the Course “Access to the Inter-American Human Rights System and the IACtHR,” which the San José Court organized for the Council of the Colegios y Órdenes de Abogados del Mercosur (COADEM), an entity composed of the lawyers’ professional associations of the MERCOSUR member countries (the Federación Argentina de Colegios de Abogados (FACA); the Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB); the Colegio de Abogados del Paraguay (CAP) and the Colegio de Abogados de Uruguay (CAU).

When inaugurating the course, the President of the IACtHR stressed the important role of training activities on the functions of the Inter-American System so that individual lawyers can have access to this information in their daily work and incorporate the Case Law of the Inter-American System into the defense of human rights at the national level.

The first session of the Course was imparted by the Judge of the IACtHR, Ricardo Pérez Manrique, who described the functioning of the Inter-American System, and the Inter-American Commission and Court.

This is a six-week program designed to provide legal professionals, members of the associations that form part of COADEM, with information on the contentious proceedings before the Commission and the Court and the regional standards. It will be imparted by professionals with extensive experience in litigations before the organs of the Inter-American System of Human Rights.