ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that judicial accountability for rights interpretation is strengthened by aligning this work with international human rights jurisprudence and in particular with recent developments at the United Nations in the field of social and economic rights (SER). The Canadian experience makes particularly transparent the importance of rights interpretation to the realization of SER. The understanding of fundamental rights in Canada has been closely tied to ongoing engagement with the development of international human rights norms. Civil society groups and indigenous peoples in Canada were among the earliest domestic human rights groups to make extensive use of international human rights procedures in advocacy and litigation strategies. International human rights bodies can play an important role in promoting more accountable and coherent principles of rights interpretation by engaging directly with domestic courts' interpretive responsibilities as components of state compliance. Judicial independence should not, therefore, be mistaken for exemption from any accountability to interpretive norms under international or domestic law.
