Disappearances in Honduras: The Need for Direct Victim Representation in Human Rights Litigation

Abstract:     
Honduran national Manfredo Angel Velasquez Rodriguez was taken to a detention center in Tegucigalpa on September 12, 1981, and was never seen again. He was thirty-five years old when he disappeared, and left a wife and four small children. Without any judicial process he was detained, interrogated and tortured, and then disappeared. A petition concerning the disappearance of Velasquez Rodriguez was filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Commission) in October of 1981. On July 29, 1988, an historic day in the fight against governmental human rights abuses in Latin America, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that the Government of Honduras was responsible for the disappearance of Manfredo Angel Velasquez Rodriguez. In this decision, the Court exercised for the first time its compulsory jurisdiction in a contested case and became the first international tribunal to find a State responsible for disappearances. Although the Court is empowered with compulsory jurisdiction under Article 62 of its Convention, prior to this case the Court had only once exercised its compulsory jurisdiction, and then in an uncontested case. The State concerned, Costa Rica, submitted the case against itself, and agreed to be bound by the ruling, but the case was dismissed before a final ruling was reached. Although other OAS member states were accused of resorting to disappearances of political dissidents, Honduras, which had acceded to the Court's binding jurisdiction, was the first state subjected to liability.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 28

Keywords: inter-american system, Honduran government, Velazquez case

Accepted Paper Series