In May 2026, the Central American Court of Justice (CACJ) quietly ceased operations following Honduras’ withdrawal—a development that attracted little attention despite marking the end of one of the world’s earliest permanent international courts. Although the CACJ never succeeded in consolidating itself, this post aims to draw attention to this overlooked event by exploring the institutional design, the challenges that hindered its development, and the regional political context that contributed to its failure as a regional court in Central America.
Historical background of the origins of the Central American Court of Justice
The establishment of CACJ embodied the long-standing aspiration for Central American unity that had shaped the region since its independence from Spain, while simultaneously inaugurating a pioneering model of permanent international adjudication. Following several unsuccessful attempts to unify the Central American States, and under the mediation of the United States (U.S.) and Mexico, the Washington Peace Conference culminated in the signing of the Convention for the Establishment of the Central American Court of Justice, formally inaugurated in Cartago, Costa Rica, on 25 May 1908.
Although the Hague Conferences of 1899 had already taken place by then and had influenced the emergence of the CACJ, and although the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) had been established in 1900 and began operating in 1902, the PCA was conceived as an institutional framework for facilitating the constitution of arbitral tribunals to resolve specific disputes. It preserved States’ authority to appoint the arbitrators responsible for deciding each case, rather than establishing a permanent international court with a standing bench of judges. In this context, the CACJ became the first international institution to vest judicial authority in a standing body of permanent and independent judges exercising jurisdiction on a continuous basis.
Yet, this first attempt had a short existence. In 1918, the CACJ ceased operations due both to the absence of an automatic renewal clause after its ten-year term in the Convention and to the lack of consensus among the Central American states regarding the extension of the Court’s mandate. This lack of support became particularly evident in 1917, when Nicaragua denounced the Convention establishing the Court after refusing to accept its decisions concerning the Bryan–Chamorro Treaty between Nicaragua and the United States.
It was not until the end of the Cold War—marked by interventionist policies, including those challenged in the Nicaragua v. U.S. case before the International Court of Justice—that new efforts towards regional integration were undertaken and a permanent regional court was re-established in Central America. Accordingly, in 1991, the Central American States adopted the Tegucigalpa Protocol to the Charter of the Organization of Central American States reorganizing the regional integration process through the creation of the Central American Integration System (SICA). This was followed by the signing of the Convention on the Statute of the Central American Court of Justice in 1992, re-establishing a permanent regional jurisdiction.
The Failed Consolidation of the Central American Court of Justice as a Regional Court
Since its inception, the CACJ faced significant institutional constraints stemming from the lack of political support from the member states of SICA. In practice, its operation depended on the participation of Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In the case of Guatemala, although the Statute of the CACJ was formally ratified, the Constitutional Court provisionally suspended the legislative decree approving and incorporating the treaty into the domestic legal order. As a result, Guatemala never appointed judges to the CACJ. In Costa Rica, the Executive Branch opposed and consistently rejected the ratification of the Court’s Statute on the grounds that its jurisdiction, particularly its competence to adjudicate disputes between branches of the State, was unacceptable. This particular competence exemplified broader concerns regarding the extensive powers conferred upon the CACJ, which exceeded those granted to comparable regional courts, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Costa Rica’s refusal to ratify the Court’s Statute illustrates how the perception of the extensive jurisdiction conferred upon the CACJ ultimately undermined its consolidation. Although the CJEU possesses certain powers that the CACJ lacked, such as mechanisms for reviewing the failure of regional integration institutions to act and for annulling unlawful acts (263-265 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the CACJ was nevertheless widely regarded as an ambitious institutional project.
The extensive jurisdiction and powers conferred upon the CACJ led some scholars to characterise it as the constitutional court of the region. Yet, the constitutional vision underpinning this integration project differs substantially from other constitutional projects that have emerged in the region beyond Central America. One such example is the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL) project, which promotes a model of transformative constitutionalism throughout Latin America. A fundamental distinction between the two constitutional projects lies in the principles that they seek to promote. The constitutional vision embodied by the CACJ forms part of SICA, whose foundational principles include peace, freedom, democracy, and development all of which serve as the guiding objectives of the regional integration process. In contrast, the ICCAL project does not arise from an integration process but from the Inter-American human rights system and it mainly promotes the constitutional trinity of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
The constitutional vision advanced by the CACJ, however, never succeeded in consolidating itself. Seeking to strengthen its role as a regional court, the CACJ drew upon key jurisprudential developments of the CJEU by recognising the principles of primacy, direct effect, and the immediate applicability of Central American Community law, as well as the principle that national judges exercise a dual role as both national judges and ordinary Community law judges, disapplying domestic norms contrary to Community law. However, these jurisprudential developments failed to strengthen the authority and consolidation of Central American Community law. By contrast, the doctrine conventionality control developed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has had a much broader reach and has even become a tool and a vehicle for the development and promotion of constitutional visions such as ICCAL.
Furthermore, the CACJ operated within a regional integration system whose legitimacy has repeatedly been called into question. The Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), in particular, has long been criticised for serving as a political refuge that enables public officials to obtain parliamentary immunity in the face of corruption allegations. Such criticisms eventually prompted El Salvador to withdraw from PARLACEN. This illustrates the persistent criticism directed at the institutions of SICA, including the CACJ, throughout their existence. A clear example is Honduras’ decision in 2004 to suspend its participation in the CACJ on the grounds that the Court was not fulfilling the objectives of regional integration and that maintaining the institution imposed a disproportionate financial burden.
And it is amid the so-called “crisis” of international law that this regional effort has now experienced a second death—an event that has received almost no attention and appears to have lost relevance in light of everything else occurring in the international sphere. Following the announcement of Honduras’s withdrawal in May 2026, joining the earlier denunciations of the Court’s constitutive treaty by Nicaragua and El Salvador, this regional body ceased its operations. The second demise of the CACJ cannot be understood in isolation from the broader political developments unfolding across Central America. Deep political divisions among the SICA member states, together with accusations of “servility to extra-regional interests”, illustrate the profound political tensions that have long characterised the Central American integration.
The Erosion of Democracy and Human Rights in the Region
The broader political context of the CACJ’s member states also helps explain the Court’s failure to consolidate. In Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras, the progressive entrenchment of political leaders has been accompanied by an increasing concentration of power, entrenched corruption and nepotism, and persistent human rights violations. In all three countries, constitutional prohibitions on presidential re-election have been reinterpreted by the constitutional chambers of their supreme courts, enabling incumbents to remain in office beyond the limits originally established by their constitutions. These developments, together with similar trends elsewhere in Latin America, formed part of the broader regional context that prompted an advisory opinion from the IACtHR.
Another defining characteristic of the region has been the persistence of serious human rights violations, including the excessive use of force to suppress social protests, prolonged state of exceptions, the political persecution of opposition figures and attacks against civil society. Likewise, the concentration of power through nepotism alongside corruption and links to drug trafficking, has become a recurrent regional feature.
It is in this context that the second demise of the CACJ marks not only the end of a regional court but also the collapse of one of the world’s earliest permanent international adjudicatory bodies. This outcome reflects the persistence of the political divisions and democratic erosion that have long hindered regional integration in Central America, exposing the fragile political and geopolitical context on which said project continues to rest.
