10 Jun Inter-American Court of Human Rights Issues $7.8 Million Judgment Against Colombia
10.06.07
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The Inter American Court of Human Rights has ruled that Colombia must pay $7.8 million in damages to the relatives of 12 judicial workers killed in a 1989 massacre by Colombian-army backed paramilitary groups. According to news reports, the ruling seems to establish a standard for assigning state liability for paramilitary groups, an important and complicated issue. The judgment was issued on May 11 but revealed today. It’s also in Spanish, so no analysis from me is forthcoming. But any Spanish-speaking readers out there are welcome to give it a shot in the comments (or point me toward an English translation).
Julian, due to budgetary constraints, the Inter-American Court only translates its opinions in a sporadic manner, so its hard to gauge when an English version will be forthcoming. On an admittedly quick read, the La Rochela Massacre case seems to be the latest in a series of cases involving state responsibility for paramilitary killings in Colombia. (See, e.g., the Pueblo Bello (available in English) and Mapiripan Massacre cases.) The case involves the 1989 extrajudicial execution of 12 government officials who were investigating previous acts of violence perpetrated by paramilitaries and the Colombian army. Colombia did not contest many of the underlying facts in the case, with the subsisting controversy centering on allegations that the paramilitary groups acted as state agents and that the state supported paramilitary activity at the time of the massacre. According to Inter-American jurisprudence, state responsibility for private acts engages where the state has (a) supported or tolerated acts that violate protected human rights; (b) failed to act, where such failure permitted the perpetration of these violations; or (c) failed to meet a duty that the state owed to the victims. Here, the Court found that the state had established a legal framework that enabled the creation… Read more »