- Enforced Disappearance Legal Database

Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras

In September 1981, Mr. Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez, a university student, was abducted in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, by armed state agents. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights established for the first time that enforced disappearances are a complex, multiple and continuous violation of the relevant American Convention on Human Rights.

Explore this landmark case

“The Enforced Disappearance Legal Database is an amazing tool for lawyers, academics, human rights defenders and anyone with an interest in enforced disappearance. Thank you to the team at EHRAC for their work in making this resource available. The EDLD is a colossal achievement.”

Professor Hélène Tigroudja, Professor of Public International Law; Member, UN Human Rights Committee.

The Enforced Disappearance Legal Database (EDLD) is the first and only resource of its kind. It includes over 200 case summaries, drawn from the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights, UN treaty bodies, and a number of domestic courts, as well as a full range of legal standards. All entries can be read in English, Spanish, French and Russian.

The EDLD has been developed by the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) with input from domestic and international legal experts.

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Leading judgments and commentary by human rights mechanisms.

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For help with how to use the EDLD, click here.

About EHRAC

EHRAC is an independent human rights litigation centre, based in London. We collaborate with lawyers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine to challenge serious human rights violations across three themes: civic space and democratic accountability; discrimination; and conflict and security force abuses.