Summary
The SUMMA database created by the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL1, by its
acronym in Spanish) grants free access to every active or closed case opened in the last
decades by the Commission and the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, the bodies of
the Interamerican Human Rights System. Understanding Court judgements and resolutions
about human rights violations in Latin America is essential for activists.
The system provides quick and intuitive access to a lot of case law issued by the Court and
the Commission. Also, it allows to look up every relevant document connected to a case
and filter documents by typology, country, case status, signatory judge, etc. The database
was developed using UWAZI, the open source platform created by HURIDOCS to organize,
analyze and share collections of documents. The database described in this document is
constantly updated with new decisions made by the Court and the Commission and can be
accessed in the following link: https://summa.cejil.org/
This case study addresses the methodological considerations that were taken into account
for enhancing access to judicial information. The guide is, thus, a kickoff to think how to
develop a data model and how information should be registered and structured to
facilitate its retrieval by users, as well as to provide aggregated information regarding
cases, all this accurately and reliably.
Needs that motivated the creation of SUMMA
CEJIL works with a network of human rights practitioners in the legal and academic fields as
well as national and international human rights organizations.
For these practitioners and other human rights defenders, the access to cases and
decisions made by the Court and the Commission is a constant need. Understanding case
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CEJIL works on the defense and promotion of human rights in Latin America harnessing
the Interamerican Human Rights System and other international mechanisms of
protection. Taking advantage of these instruments, the Center seeks to reduce inequality
and exclusion in the region, pursuit justice in cases of human rights violations, strengthen
democracy and public institutions and improve the efficacy of the Interamerican Human
Rights System.
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