La funzione informativa dell'equità nel diritto internazionale

The political and civil debate on the democratic model of a state subject to the rule of law and its worldwide expansion concerns international law, particularly in the way human rights and basic freedoms are recognized as sources of the international community’s legal system. Equity could be a common interpretative denominator for the law to be applied between States to guarantee a minimum fundamental provision of substantive law and basically standard procedural law (fair trial). In this way a “new” interpretative criterion for customary laws and compulsory pacts would be provided that could be constantly adapted to real situations in different international geo-political contexts. Human rights communication takes place in this frequently controversial scenario and requires a pre-emptive choice of values that the international courts’ case law is developing case by case. The contribution of equity in mediating and settling disputes in the field of human rights depends, in the final analysis, on jurisprudential practice.