Jurisprudence Database
The Jurisprudence Database sets out leading judgments and commentary by international and domestic legal mechanisms in the field of enforced disappearances. It summarises factual and legal findings and identifies common themes and search terms allowing for a comparative cross-jurisdictional analysis of this area of law. Users can search the source bank through a filter-based or key-term search and access text in English, Spanish, Russian and French.
Search the PDF content in documents uploaded to the Enforced Disappearance Legal Database.
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González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico
The Court highlighted that the obligation to conduct an effective investigation is broader in scope in the case of a woman who may have been killed or ill-treated, or whose personal liberty was affected, within a wider context of violence against women. Citing the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death, the Court referred to the importance of the proper handling and documentation of crime scenes; collection of evidence; recording of the chain of custody; proper undertaking of autopsies; and identification and return of the bodies. Given the serious situation of violence against women in Ciudad Juárez, the ...click to read more
Duty to Investigate | Reparations | Guarantees of Non-Repetition | Obligation to Prevent | Children/Youth | Systemic Practice
Bitiyeva and Others v. Russia
The Court reiterated the principle that when abductions take place in an area under control of the State, those carrying out the abductions can be presumed to be State agents. In line with its previous case law, the Court did not make a finding of inhuman treatment in relation to the victim's relatives, holding that a family member of a “disappeared person” can claim to be a victim of inhuman treatment in cases where the person taken into custody has later been found dead only if this is justified by a period of long detention. In light of the fact ...click to read more
Refusal to Disclose Fate | Relatives as Victims | Right to Know the Truth | State/Non-State Agents | Reparations | Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence
Sabalsagaray Curutchet
The Court declared that Articles 1, 3 and 4 the Law on the Expiration of the Punitive Claims of the State were unconstitutional. It based this decision on a finding that they violated the right of victims and their families to access the judicial system and obligation to identify and punish the perpetrators of crimes that occurred during the dictatorship. The Court highlighted that the right to have one's rights protected is recognised by both the Constitution and international treaties. It found that, by excluding suspects from the State's sanctioning power, the amnesty law violated the separation of powers. It ...click to read more
Guarantees Against Impunity | Punishment | Amnesties
Anzualdo Castro v. Peru
The Court departed from its previous case law in relation to the right to juridical personality, finding that the enforced disappearance of a person is one of the most serious forms of placing a person outside the protection of the law. It noted that this violation entails to deny the disappeared person’s existence and place them in a kind of limbo or uncertain legal situation in violation of the right to juridical personality.
Systemic Practice | Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence | Judicial Protection | Juridical Personality | Jus Cogens
Varnava and Others v. Turkey
The Court confirmed that the procedural obligation to investigate under Article 2 has a distinct scope of application from its substantive limb. The Court emphasized the difference between killings and disappearances in relation to the procedural obligation to investigate violations of the right to life, finding that a disappearance is characterised by an ongoing situation of uncertainty and unaccountability in which there is a lack of information or even a deliberate concealment of what has occurred, resulting in a continuing violation which is prolonging the torment of the victim’s relatives. For this reason, the Court held that the procedural obligation ...click to read more
Statute of Limitations | Relatives as Victims | Right to Know the Truth | State/Non-State Agents | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Extraterritorial Jurisdiction | Reparations | Evidence | Burden of Proof | Admissibility
Cifuentes Elgueta v. Chile (Admissibility)
The Committee noted that although the victim’s disappearance occurred after the entry into force of the Covenant for the State, this was not true with respect to the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, reaffirming that the latter cannot be applied retroactively unless the acts that gave rise to the complaint continued after its entry into force. Departing from its previous findings, the Committee found the communication inadmissible ratione temporis, holding that the original act of deprivation of liberty and the subsequent refusal to give information about the whereabouts of the victim occurred prior to the entry into force of the ...click to read more
Admissibility
Akhmadova and Others v. Russia
Recalling that, in the context of the conflict in the Chechen Republic, unacknowledged detention by unidentified servicemen can be regarded as life-threatening, the Court was satisfied that the victim must be presumed dead following his detention by State servicemen, and that the death could be attributed to the State. It further found a procedural violation of the right to life, holding that the absence of a proper investigation into the abduction contributed to the victim's disappearance. The Court also made a finding of inhuman treatment with respect to the victim's relatives, due to the manner in which their complaints have ...click to read more
Duty to Prosecute | Reparations | Deprivation of Liberty | Systemic Practice | Refusal to Disclose Fate | Relatives as Victims | Right to Know the Truth | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate
Medova v. Russia
The Court was satisfied that the victim was abducted by armed men who identified themselves as State agents, but was not able to prove whether the latter were indeed State authorities due to the lack of sufficient evidence. Drawing on its previous findings that the disappearance of a person may in itself be considered as life-threatening even when it is not possible to establish the State's involvement in it, the Court held that the victim must be presumed dead following his abduction by a group of armed men. Nevertheless, the Court was of the opinion that a finding of State ...click to read more
Deprivation of Liberty | State/Non-State Agents | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Obligation to Prevent
Zaurbekova and Zaurbekova v. Russia
The Court was satisfied that the victim was apprehended by State agents and recalled that in the context of the conflict in the Chechen Republic unacknowledged detention by unidentified servicemen without any subsequent acknowledgement of the detention can be regarded as life-threatening. The Court thus held that the victim must be presumed dead, especially in light of the considerable amount of time passed since his disappearance, and found the State responsible for his death. The Court was not able to conclude that the victim was subjected to ill-treatment while in detention, but made a finding of inhuman treatment with respect ...click to read more
Evidence | Relatives as Victims | State/Non-State Agents | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Reparations | Burden of Proof | Deprivation of Liberty
Amirov v. Russia
The Committee found that the State party had failed in its duty to adequately investigate allegations of torture put forward by the applicant. However, while reaffirming its views that the burden of proof cannot rest on the applicants alone, especially when there is a claim of violation of the right not to be tortured by State authorities, it did not find evidence of a direct violation of such a right with respect to the victim. In light of the horrific conditions in which the applicant found the victim's remains, followed by dilatory, sporadic investigative measures, the Committee made a finding ...click to read more
Evidence | Relatives as Victims | Effective Remedy | Women and Girls | Duty to Investigate