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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Aceituno and Vasquez v. Chile
The Committee noted, notwithstanding that the state had not challenged the admissibility of the communication, that the acts giving rise to the claims related to the death of the victims took place prior to the international entry into force of the Covenant and prior to the entry into force of the Optional Protocol for Chile. For this reason, the Committee considered the claims inadmissible on ratione temporis grounds.
Admissibility
Çakici v. Turkey
The Court found that whether the failure on the part of the authorities to provide a plausible explanation as to a detainee's fate, in the absence of a body, might engage the state's obligation under Article 2 will depend on all the circumstances of the case, and in particular on the existence of sufficient circumstantial evidence, based on concrete elements, from which it may be concluded to the requisite standard of proof that the detainee must be presumed to have died in custody. It also found that there was no general principle that a family member of a "disappeared person" ...click to read more
Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence | Judicial Protection | Relatives as Victims
Castillo Páez v. Peru
The Court found the State responsible for violating the right to life, given the time that had elapsed since the victim's arbitrary detention, and the State's denial of information on his whereabouts. The Court found the State's claim that the body is needed to argue a deprivation of life inadmissible, due to the fact that frequently, the perpetrators of enforced disappearances hide or destroy a victim's body. The Court stated that if domestic difficulties prevent the identification of the individuals responsible for crimes, the State is nonetheless responsible for establishing the fate and, if appropriate, the whereabouts of the victim's ...click to read more
Right to Know the Truth | Duty to Investigate | Guarantees Against Impunity | Judicial Protection
Garrido and Baigorria v. Argentina (Reparation and Costs)
The State fully accepted its international responsibility for the disappearance of the victims, and the violation of their rights to life, personal integrity, personal liberty, judicial and procedural guarantees, and judicial protection, which the Court accepted. As regards measures of reparation, the Court ordered the Argentine State to investigate the events that led to the disappearance of the two victims, and to bring to trial and punish the perpetrators, accomplices, accessories and all those who may have participated in the events. The State was further ordered to search for and identify Mr. Raúl Baigorria Balmaceda's two extra-martial children and to ...click to read more
Deprivation of Liberty | Judicial Protection | Effective Remedy | Reparations
Kurt v. Turkey
The Court noted that unacknowledged detention of an individual amounts to a complete negation of the corpus of substantive rights guaranteed by Article 5 and therefore a most grave violation of the right to liberty. Article 5 must be seen as requiring the authorities to take effective measures to safeguard against the risk of disappearance and to conduct a prompt effective investigation into an arguable claim that a person has been taken into custody and has not been seen since. The Court applied a standard of evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" requiring "concrete evidence" of the violation of Articles 2 and ...click to read more
Duty to Investigate | Burden of Proof | Obligation to Prevent | Interim/Urgent Measures | Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence | Judicial Protection | Relatives as Victims
General Comment on Article 19 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
The General Comment explains the right to obtain redress, adequate compensation, and rehabilitation for victims of enforced disappearance and their families. The Working Group clarifies that states are obliged to ensure that domestic legislation incorporates relevant provisions that enable victims to claim compensation which must be proportionate to the gravity of the act of enforced disappearance.
Effective Remedy
Villafañe Chaparro et al v. Colombia
The Committee found that the state has a duty to investigate alleged violations of human rights, particularly enforced disappearances and extrajudicial execution, and to criminally prosecute and punish those responsible for such violations. Purely disciplinary and administrative remedies cannot be deemed to constitute adequate and effective remedies in the event of serious violations of human rights, such as the right to life.
Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Admissibility | Indigenous Peoples
General Comment on Article 10 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
The General Comment provides a detailed explanation on three obligations set out in Article 10 of the Declaration that are aimed at preventing enforced disappearances namely the place of detention must be a clearly identifiable and officially recognised place and information about the place of detention should be known to the family, relatives, and others concerned, and the detainee must be brought before a judicial authority without delay. These provisions cannot be suspended under any circumstances, including during states of a war or public emergency.
Deprivation of Liberty | Judicial Protection
Tshishimbi v. Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Committee found that removal of the victim and prevention of contact with his family and with the outside world constitute cruel and inhuman treatment. Relying on its prior jurisprudence, the Committee held that the right to liberty and security of a person may be invoked not only in the context of arrest and detention, but also in a situation when abduction took place under circumstances that have not been clarified.
Admissibility | Interim/Urgent Measures | Relatives as Victims | Effective Remedy
Atachahua v. Peru
The Committee found that abduction and further disappearance of the victim and prevention of contact with her family and with the outside world amounts to cruel and inhuman treatment. The Committee also found that extra-conventional procedures or mechanisms established by the UN whose missions are to report on human rights situations do not constitute procedures of international investigation or settlement within the meaning of Article 5.2 (a) of the ICCPR Optional Protocol. On this basis, it dismissed Peru's challenge of the Committee's competence to deal with the case because the same question was pending before the UN Working Group on ...click to read more
Effective Remedy | Admissibility | Obligation to Prevent | Children/Youth