NAME OF MECHANISM

Inter-American Court of Human Rights cases: Godínez-Cruz v. Honduras and Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras

PERIOD

24 April 1986 – 1988

RESOURCES

Godínez-Cruz v. Honduras judgment [26 June 1987]
Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras judgment [19 July 1988]

RESULTS

In both cases, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the government of Honduras had failed to protect the fundamental rights of the two disappeared men and ordered it to pay compensation to the victims’ families. The cases brought to light the human rights violations perpetrated by Batallion 316, an intelligence unit of the Honduran military. In 1993, the court testimonies of former Battalion 316 agents and case studies of 180 reported disappearances were published in the Preliminary Report of the National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras.

In 2000, the government announced that it would pay US$1.6 million in compensation to the families of 17 of the 184 victims recognised as disappeared by Battalion 316 [MISF | 2007].

BACKGROUND

On 24 April 1986, spurred by a petition it received in 1982, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requested that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights determine whether Honduras had violated a Article 4 (right to life), Article 5 (right to humane treatment) and Article 7 (right to personal liberty) of the American Convention on Human Rights in the case of Saúl Godínez Crúz, a schoolteacher disappeared in 1982. On the same day, the commission made a similar request regarding the case of Angel Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez, a university student disappeared in 1981. These unprecedented cases brought the situation in Honduras to the attention of the Honduran public and the international community.

SOURCES

[May I Speak Freely? | 2007]
[National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras | 1993]