## Facts

- Luis Alfredo Almonacid-Arellano, a teacher and political activist, was arrested at his home in Rancagua on September 16, 1973, by uniformed men shortly after the military coup.
- As he was taken to a police truck, he was shot and died in hospital on September 17, 1973.
- A domestic criminal investigation was opened but dismissed in 1974.
- In 1978, Chile enacted Decree Law No. 2.191 granting amnesty for crimes committed between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978.
- When relatives sought to reopen proceedings in 1992, Chilean courts refused, treating the amnesty as extinguishing criminal responsibility and preventing further investigation and prosecution.
- In 1998, the victim’s relatives petitioned the Inter-American Commission, which concluded Chile violated the American Convention by applying the amnesty law and failing to investigate and punish.
- The case was submitted to the Inter-American Court in 2005; Chile raised preliminary objections including lack of temporal jurisdiction and non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
- The Court addressed the case against the background of widespread and systematic abuses during the early period of the military regime.

## Issues

1. Whether Chile’s failure to investigate, prosecute, and punish the killing, due to application of the amnesty law, violated Articles 8 and 25, in relation to Article 1(1), of the American Convention.
2. Whether maintaining and applying the amnesty law violated Article 2 of the American Convention (duty to adopt domestic measures).
3. Whether the killing constituted a crime against humanity, affecting the permissibility of amnesty, limitation periods, and related bars to prosecution.
4. Whether the Court had temporal jurisdiction where the killing occurred before Chile’s ratification, but the denial of justice and impunity continued afterward.

## Decision

- The Court rejected Chile’s preliminary objections to the extent they sought to exclude review of continuing post-ratification effects of impunity and denial of justice.
- The Court held Chile violated Articles 8 and 25, in relation to Article 1(1), by denying the next of kin effective judicial guarantees and protection through reliance on the amnesty law to halt proceedings.
- The Court held Chile violated Article 2 by keeping in force an amnesty law incompatible with the Convention and failing to align domestic law to enable investigation and punishment of serious violations.
- The Court characterized the killing, committed in the context of a generalized and systematic attack on civilians, as a crime against humanity and held the amnesty could not lawfully be applied to bar accountability.
- The Court ordered Chile to pursue effective investigation and prosecution without giving effect to the amnesty law or other bars incompatible with the Convention, and to provide reparations including damages, costs, and publication measures, and to adopt measures to bring domestic law into conformity with the Convention.

## Legal Principles

- Continuing post-ratification denial of justice and maintenance of impunity can fall within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction even if the underlying killing predated ratification.
- States must provide effective judicial guarantees and remedies for serious human rights violations; an investigation must be serious, prompt, and effective.
- Amnesty measures that prevent investigation and punishment of serious human rights violations are incompatible with the American Convention, and the State must refrain from applying them and ensure they lack legal effect.
- Under Article 2, States must adopt legislative and other measures to give effect to Convention rights; maintaining domestic laws that block accountability for serious violations breaches that duty.
- Crimes against humanity entail an obligation to investigate and punish that cannot be nullified by amnesties, statutes of limitation, or similar domestic obstacles when they conflict with Convention duties.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Chile’s reliance on a domestic amnesty law to foreclose investigation and prosecution of a dictatorship-era killing violated the American Convention, required that the amnesty have no effect for crimes against humanity, and ordered renewed accountability measures and reparations for the victim’s relatives.


Almonacid-Arellano v. Chile, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 154 (2006)