Towards Abortion as a Convention Right? New Developments in the Case Law of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights
Speaker(s):
Series:
Associated with:
Add to calendar
Abstract:
Are the European and Inter-American human rights systems moving toward recognising abortion as a Convention right? Recent case law suggests a more complex trajectory than a straightforward expansion of reproductive rights. While both the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have significantly strengthened the protection of reproductive autonomy through doctrines relating to privacy, personal integrity, equality, and access to healthcare, neither Court has yet recognised a substantive right to abortion under their respective treaties.
This talk offers a comparative analysis of recent jurisprudence to argue that both systems display a pattern of incremental doctrinal development combined with institutional hesitation. The European Court continues to frame abortion primarily through procedural access guarantees, while the Inter-American Court –despite developing a strong autonomy-based reproductive rights framework– has recently shown signs of doctrinal caution in abortion-related cases. These developments raise broader questions about the future of abortion protection in international human rights law and the extent to which current global backlash against gender equality may be shaping judicial strategies of restraint.
About the speaker:
Dr Natalia Morales Cerda is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and an Associate Lecturer (Teaching) at UCL Laws, where she teaches Public Law and contributes to LLM mentoring and seminars. She also serves as an Associate Editor of the IACL-IADC Blog. She recently completed her PhD at UCL Laws, supervised by Professors Silvia Șuteu and Colm O’Cinneide. Her doctoral research examines conceptions of political representation and their impact on constitutional democracy, drawing on insights from women’s involvement in the 2019–2022 Chilean constitution-making process.
Her research focuses on comparative constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on gender constitutionalism, constitution-making processes, and political representation. She has published extensively on these topics, particularly in the context of Latin America, and has collaborated with governmental and civil society organisations on projects related to legal reform, reproductive rights, and gender equality.
