Dominican Republic Withdrawals from Inter-American Court of Human Rights

By Courtney Cox

Last year, a Dominican court held that illegal migrant workers’ children born in the Dominican Republic were denied automatic citizenship. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the court’s holding was discriminatory towards Dominicans of Haitian descent and gave the country six months to invalidate the court’s ruling. This did not sit well with the Dominican government which found the finding to be unfair and unacceptable.

Nevertheless, the Associated Press reported that the Dominican Republic justified the withdrawal from the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction on constitutional grounds: “the country had to withdraw from the rights court because the Senate never issued a resolution to ratify the February 1999 agreement with the rights court as required by the Dominican constitution.” Previously, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against the Dominican Republic on related issues including “indiscriminate deportations” of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.