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Africa and the Americas each have their own regional courts and commissions, built to hold the states of their region to account. IHR Advisors, founded by lawyers Ben Keith and Rhys Davies, acts in regional human rights matters across both, bringing cases before the bodies that govern these regions and tying that work to the firm’s wider international practice. Choosing the regional forum over the global one, where it fits, can be the decision that wins a case.
In Africa, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights examines complaints of human rights violations by states bound by the African Charter, and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania hears cases referred to it and can issue binding judgments where a state has accepted its jurisdiction. The two work together, and a case is often built through the Commission before it reaches the Court.
In the Americas, the Inter-American system runs along similar lines. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights based in Washington D.C. receives and examines petitions, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights based in San José, Costa Rica decides the cases brought before it and orders remedies the responsible state is bound to follow. For a person failed by their national courts in the region, it is frequently the forum where accountability is finally reached.
Regional cases reward preparation and patience. They turn on admissibility, on the exhaustion of domestic remedies, on the precise right engaged and the precedent the body has set before, and on a record built to the standard the forum applies. An application or petition that simply states the wrong rather than proving it, or that arrives before the domestic routes are exhausted, can be turned away on procedure.
The regional cases rarely stand alone either. They run beside extradition defence, asylum claims, sanctions work and submissions to the UN bodies, and the firm manages them as one.
The regional systems are distinct fields, each with its own law, procedure and body of decisions, and they are not interchangeable with one another or with the UN mechanisms. A lawyer who knows one does not automatically know the next. The advantage comes from having worked before these bodies, from knowing how each weighs a case and what moves it, and from knowing how a regional case fits with the other proceedings around it.
Ben Keith has spent years acting in international and regional human rights matters, taking cases to the bodies built to hold states to account and acting in the extradition, asylum and cross-border work that runs alongside. He is a lawyer at 5SAH in London, ranked for extradition and international work in both Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500, the former describing him as “out of this world”.
He is co-author of Interpol Law and Practice, the practitioner’s textbook on Interpol.
Rhys Davies has built the same kind of practice from a different chair: cases involving torture, extradition and politically motivated prosecution across several jurisdictions and regions, and communications to the United Nations where a case calls for them. He is a lawyer at Temple Garden Chambers in London and The Hague, ranked as a leading individual by the Legal 500 2026, which calls him “a standout international lawyer” and the lawyer others turn to for UN submissions in difficult cases.
He is co-author of Interpol Law and Practice, the practitioner’s textbook on Interpol.
Ben Keith and Rhys Davies founded IHR Advisors to keep the legal work, the strategy and the press handling of these cases in one place, because in practice they cannot be pulled apart. A regional human rights case is rarely won by a single filing, and the firm runs the whole of it: choosing the regional body that fits, building the petition to the standard it applies, carrying the extradition, asylum and UN work that moves alongside, handling publicity where it helps and holding it back where it would not, and working with local counsel in the country where the violation occurred.
The people the firm acts for are individuals and their families, business people, politically exposed persons, NGOs and human rights defenders. The cases come most often from states that have closed their own courts to the people they have wronged, leaving the regional forum as the route through which accountability can still be reached.
They are the courts and commissions built to hold the states of a particular region to account for human rights violations. Africa has the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights; the Americas has the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
When the case concerns a state bound by that region’s system and the person has been failed by their national courts. The regional body can examine the state’s conduct from outside its control and, in the case of the courts, order remedies the state is bound to follow.
In most cases, yes. The regional bodies generally require that the domestic routes have been pursued and have failed before a case is admissible, though there are exceptions where those routes are unavailable or plainly ineffective.
Depending on the body and the case, remedies can include findings of violation, orders for compensation, and directions to the state to change a law or practice. A judgment carries weight even where enforcement depends on the state’s compliance.
Contact IHR Advisors through the contact page on this site. Ben and Rhys take instructions from individuals, family members, organisations and legal teams working in parallel, and early advice decides which forum and which route fit the case.
If you, or someone you act for, has been failed by the national courts in Africa or the Americas, the regional system may still offer a way through. The forum, the timing and the order of the steps taken shape what can be achieved, and the choices made at the start are the hardest to undo. A lawyer who works before these bodies can usually tell you, inside a single conversation, where you stand and what can be done about it.
If you would like to speak with us about our areas of practice or anything else please contact us via the form linked below.
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