In the article, “Reaching Beyond the State,” Jeffrey Davis and Edward Warner identify that one of four main purposes of an international court is “its jurisprudence should transcend the parties in the case in order to express the normative value of justice and equality under the law to broad classes of victims”. There is great significance in that purpose. An international human rights court cannot hear every case that is presented to it. National courts are better equipped to handle many individual cases. Therefore it seems very important that international human rights courts should choose to hear cases that are representative of common human rights violations occurring in various nations. In that way it can establish a precedent that other national human rights courts can follow from. It makes an example out of one case that applies to many situations, making their decisions more universal.
In many ways, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights fulfills this purpose; it takes on cases that are representative of endemic human rights violations in Latin America. A good example would be La Cantuta v Peru.
The violation in question took place at the Enrique Guzman y Valle National University in La Cantuta, Lima. Apparently a military post had been set up at the University beginning in May 1991. There were many documented cases of the military forces stationed there harassing students and teachers. They would randomly raid the quarters of students, or would threaten students without cause.
As the sun was rising on June 18, 1992 a paramilitary group called the Colina Group stormed the campus residences. They led everyone outside at gun point, and made them get face down on the ground. Colina Group members went through the students and teachers rounding up people whose names were on a list they carried. They then forcibly removed a professor from his residence. 9 students and a professor were taken with the Colina Group. Above is a picture of the detainees. The decomposing bodies of two students they detained were found in July and October 1993, over a year later. Below is a picture of the family members taking possession of the remains to give them a proper burial.
It was later documented that the Colina Group was part of the Peruvian National Intelligence Service. Their main duties according to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights consisted of “identification, control and elimination of those persons suspected of belonging to insurgent groups or who opposed to the government of former President Alberto Fujimori.”
In this case, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the Peruvian government had to investigate, and begin criminal proceeding to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes, find the other 8 bodies of the people detained at the university, put up a memorial for all 10 victims, give reparations to the victim’s families, publicly admit its liability for the crime, and start human rights educating programs for service members among other things.
This ruling eventually led to Peru’s former president Albert Fujimori being charged for this crime. Although the human rights violations committed were egregious, the victims of the La Cantuta murders, through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, were able to set a precedent in Peru for State committed human rights violations. Because impunity existed in Peru’s government and law system, the crimes against the La Cantuta victims fueled their families to reach outside Peru to speak out for them, and set the example that there are consequences for the human rights violations committed in post-conflict nations.
Works Cited:
Reaching Beyond the State by Jeffrey Davis and Edward Warner
http://www.alternativechannel.org/content.php?cid=11537
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/
No comments:
Post a Comment