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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Gutierrez Dorado and Dorado Ortiz v. Spain (Admissibility)
The Court concluded that the complaint was introduced out of time and must therefore be rejected arguing that, where the death occurred before the entry into force of the Convention for the State, only procedural acts or omissions which occurred after that date fall within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction. It further held that, in such a case, there must exist a genuine connection between a death which occurred in 1936 and the entry into force of the Convention in 1979 for the procedural obligations imposed by Article 2 to come into effect. Departing from its previous case law on the ...click to read more
Admissibility | Statute of Limitations
Jestina Mukoko v. Attorney General
The Court found that the prolonged periods of solitary confinement to which the victim was subjected constituted inhuman and degrading treatment. It highlighted that solitary confinement in itself does not amount to inhuman treatment, but that it can reach the required threshold dependent on its duration, aim, imposition on a person who has not yet been convicted of an offence, and effects on the individual’s physical and mental well-being.
Deprivation of Liberty | Women and Girls
González Medina and Family v. Dominican Republic
The Court considered it reasonable to presume that Mr. González Medina suffered physical and psychological mistreatment while in State custody, aggravated by the lack of attention to his epileptic condition, amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Furthermore, the Court reiterated that enforced disappearance in itself violates the right to humane treatment, as the mere fact of prolonged isolation and compulsory solitary confinement represents cruel and inhuman treatment. The Court had previously established that when the purpose of a violation of the rights to life, personal liberty or personal integrity is to impede the legitimate exercise of another right protected by ...click to read more
Deprivation of Liberty | Juridical Personality | Guarantees Against Impunity
Balao et al. vs. Macapagal-Arroyo et al.
The Court defined enforced disappearance as the arrest, detention or abduction of a person by a government official (or organised group or private individual acting with the direct or indirect acquiescence of the government), coupled with the refusal of the State to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person, or refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty with the aim of placing the person outside the protection of law. Applying this definition, the Court did not find that the victim had been subjected to an enforced disappearance. The Court found that the mere existence of a practice of targeting ...click to read more
Systemic Practice | Duty to Investigate | Burden of Proof | Evidence
General Comment on the right to recognition as a person before the law in the context of enforced disappearances
The General Comments builds on Article 1 of the Declaration and clarifies that victims of enforced disappearance are thrust in a legal limbo where their legal existence is denied and thus this prevents them from enjoying all other human rights. This is true also in cases of children who were born during their mother's enforced disappearance. Under such circumstances, states have the obligation to recognise the legal personality of the disappeared individual through a "declaration of absence by reason of enforced disappearance". Even though states afford such a declaration, they still have the obligation to fulfil their duty to investigate ...click to read more
Judicial Protection | Children/Youth
Torres Millacura et al. v. Argentina
The Court noted that, even when aiming at maintaining public order, improper action taken by State agents in their interaction with the individuals whom they should be protecting, represents one of the principal threats to the right to personal liberty. When this right is violated, it risks also causing the violation of other rights, such as the rights to humane treatment and, in some cases, to life. The Court considered that Mr. Torres Millacura was placed in a legal limbo which eliminate the possibility of him effectively exercising his rights. For the Court, this deprivation represented one of the most ...click to read more
Juridical Personality | Duty to Investigate | Obligation to Prevent
Palić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina
Taking into account the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the years following the war, and the fact that there had been no substantial period of inactivity on the part of the domestic authorities, the Court found that the domestic criminal investigation into the victims' disappearance and death was conducted with reasonable promptness and expedition. The Court also found that, without putting in doubt the suffering of the victim's relatives, the authorities’ reactions could not be categorised as inhuman and degrading treatment, since domestic authorities recognised the victim's disappearance, his wife received compensation, the victim's remains were eventually identified, and ...click to read more
Relatives as Victims | Right to Know the Truth | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Deprivation of Liberty
Contreras et al. v. El Salvador
The Court noted that victims of enforced disappearance are in an aggravated situation of vulnerability, which is exacerbated where there is a systematic pattern of human rights violations. When disappearances involve children, the illegal abduction of their biological parents puts the children's life, survival, and development at risk. The Court considered it necessary for the State to adopt clear and concrete strategies aimed at overcoming impunity in the prosecution of enforced disappearances of children during the armed conflict; to make visible the systematic nature of this crime (which mainly affected Salvadorian children); and to prevent these acts from being repeated ...click to read more
Juridical Personality | Obligation to Prevent | Children/Youth | Women and Girls
Gisayev v. Russia
The Court was satisfied that the victim was abducted, held in unacknowledged detention and ill-treated by State agents. It made a finding of torture with respect to the victim, in light of the fact that he was kept in a permanent state of physical pain and anxiety owing to his uncertainty about his fate and to the level of violence to which he was subjected throughout his unacknowledged detention. The Court further held that the victim was held in unacknowledged detention in complete disregard of any safeguards, amounting to a particularly grave violation of his right to liberty and security.
Deprivation of Liberty | Evidence | Refusal to Disclose Fate | State/Non-State Agents | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Reparations | Burden of Proof
González v. Argentina
The Committee held that, although it could not be concluded that the victim was detained, there were indications that he was the person whose dead body had been found, and that judicial proceedings failed to explain these facts or identify those responsible.
Relatives as Victims | Effective Remedy | Duty to Investigate | Duty to Prosecute | Burden of Proof | Statute of Limitations