Diplomatic Asylum: Between "Tradition" and Custom. A study on the foundations, denials, and development of the Latin American regional institute in light of state practice and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
diplomatic asylum; regional custom; Latin America
This thesis project aims to analyze the development of diplomatic asylum from its initial inclusion in the Americanist project for the development of international law in the early 20th century to its instrumentalization – and even denial of its foundations – by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the Advisory Opinion No. 25/18. Diplomatic asylum presents several controversies, from its characterization as a subject of international law or politics, as a right of the State or of the individual, in addition to having its legal nature disputed: would it be mere humanitarian practice, an institution of a merely conventional or customary nature? The answer to these questions necessarily goes through the analysis of the historical development of the institution and the discussion about its legal nature as a possible Latin American customary law. Through documentary and bibliographic analysis, it is concluded that the semantic subterfuges that mask the application of asylum as a Latin American regional custom end up reinforcing the existence and permanence of the recurring institution.