The American Convention on Human Rights has become a cornerstone of Latin American transformative constitutionalism. Worldwide, the Convention is perhaps the most important international instrument of this nature. The article explains how the Inter-American system received its mandate for supporting transformative constitutionalism and provides a glance into its social legitimacy today. It will show the common law of human rights it has developed and study the safeguards for its legitimate exercise. Lastly, it will sketch yardsticks to assess the system’s success and end with a note on the value of critique.