Judge Antônio A. Cançado Trindade. The Construction of a Humanized International Law

The current volume supplements Volume 1 and 2 of The Construction of a Humanized International Law, which contains a selection of the Individual Opinions of Judge Antônio A. Cançado Trindade (1991-2013), former Judge and President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and since 2008 a Judge of the International Court of Justice. Volume 3 brings these texts up to date till 2015. Many dwell on aspects of the increased humanization of international law. Elevating this body of norms, which have traditionally focused on purely inter-State relations, to a level where individuals and their suffering (projected in time) become a primary concern, is without doubt Antônio A. Cançado Trindade´s major doctrinal contribution. His great achievement at the International Court of Justice has been to draw attention to this dimension, and to further its development in the international case-law, in the light of the universal juridical conscience and stressing the relevance of general principles of international law. In a significant number of cases the World Court acts today as a human rights court, dealing increasingly, albeit under the traditional umbrella of inter-State disputes, with situations that involve human suffering and lead it to find human rights violations.