THE CASE OF ALMONACID ARELLANO VS. CHILE AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF CONVENTIONALITY CONTROL: TRANSNATIONAL JUDICIAL DIALOGUES AND THE EVOLVING ROLE OF DOMESTIC JUDGES IN THE INTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM

INTRODUCTION: The case of Almonacid Arellano et al. v. Chile, decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2006, is one of the founding milestones of the doctrine of conventionality control. Arising from the application of Chile’s 1978 Amnesty Law (Decree Law No. 2,191) to the extrajudicial execution of a schoolteacher and trade union leader in 1973, the case moved the Inter-American debate beyond the assessment of State responsibility and placed domestic judges at the centre of the enforcement of the American Convention on Human Rights. AIMS: The research aimed to analyse in depth how this judgment contributed to the consolidation of conventionality control within the Inter-American Human Rights System, to distinguish the control exercised directly by the Inter-American Court from the control expected of national judges and authorities, and to evaluate the impact of this mechanism on domestic legal systems, with particular attention to the Brazilian judiciary MATERIALS AND METHODS: A qualitative, analytical and documentary approach was adopted, structured by the hypothetical-deductive method and organised in three stages: a bibliographic review of Brazilian and international scholarship on the Inter-American system, transitional justice and conventionality control; a jurisprudential analysis of Petition No. 12,057, Admissibility Report No. 44/02, the 2006 merits judgment and subsequent decisions such as Barrios Altos v. Peru, Gomes Lund v. Brazil and Gelman v. Uruguay; and a documentary analysis of primary legal instruments, including the American Convention, Decree Law No. 2,191 and ILO Convention No. 132. RESULTS: A qualitative, analytical and documentary approach was adopted, structured by the hypothetical-deductive method and organised in three stages: a bibliographic review of Brazilian and international scholarship on the Inter-American system, transitional justice and conventionality control; a jurisprudential analysis of Petition No. 12,057, Admissibility Report No. 44/02, the 2006 merits judgment and subsequent decisions such as Barrios Altos v. Peru, Gomes Lund v. Brazil and Gelman v. Uruguay; and a documentary analysis of primary legal instruments, including the American Convention, Decree Law No. 2,191 and ILO Convention No. 132. Results: The study confirmed that Almonacid Arellano operated a doctrinal turning point by declaring that self-amnesty laws covering crimes against humanity lack legal effects and, above all, by formulating for the first time in the operative reasoning of the Court the obligation of domestic judges to review the compatibility of internal norms with the Convention and with the Court’s own interpretation of it. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: : Conventionality control is confirmed as a practical instrument of rights protection rather than a merely theoretical construct, but its effectiveness depends less on the normative authority of the Inter-American Court than on the institutional culture, training and willingness of domestic judges to treat the Convention as directly applicable law. Strengthening judicial dialogue, rather than asserting hierarchy, appears as the most promising path towards a coherent regional system of human rights protection.

KEYWORDS: Conventionality control; Almonacid Arellano v. Chile; Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Amnesty laws; Judicial dialogue.