## Facts

- Ángel Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez, a Honduran university student, was forcibly detained in Tegucigalpa on September 12, 1981, without a warrant by members of Honduran security units.
- Witnesses reported he was taken to a security station, accused of political crimes, and subjected to harsh interrogation and torture.
- He was reportedly transferred to a military battalion around September 17, 1981, while authorities denied his detention and his fate remained unknown.
- The evidence showed a broader, systematic practice of enforced disappearances in Honduras during the relevant period, carried out or tolerated by State security forces.
- The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights presented the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights after processing the petition and alleging violations of the American Convention on Human Rights.

## Issues

1. Whether Velásquez Rodríguez’s disappearance was attributable to Honduras and violated the rights to personal liberty (Art. 7), humane treatment (Art. 5), and life (Art. 4).
2. Whether Honduras breached its general obligation to respect and ensure rights (Art. 1(1)) by tolerating disappearances and failing to prevent, investigate, and punish them.
3. Whether Honduras failed to provide effective judicial remedies (Art. 25, with Arts. 1(1) and 2), including whether any exhaustion-of-remedies objection barred the claim.

## Decision

- The Court held Honduras internationally responsible for Velásquez Rodríguez’s enforced disappearance as part of a State-linked practice.
- The Court found violations of Article 7 (secret, unacknowledged detention), Article 5 (torture/cruel treatment and related suffering), and Article 4 (inferred deprivation of life), each in conjunction with Article 1(1).
- The Court concluded Honduras breached Article 1(1) by failing to prevent the disappearance and by not conducting a serious investigation or punishing those responsible.
- The Court found a lack of effective remedies, rejecting the State’s domestic-remedies defense in light of the failure to investigate and provide meaningful judicial protection.
- On reparations, the Court ordered fair compensation to the victim’s next of kin and retained jurisdiction to determine form and amount; a later judgment approved an agreement on compensation and addressed costs.

## Legal Principles

- A State may incur international responsibility not only through direct acts of its agents, but also through lack of due diligence to prevent, investigate, punish, and remedy human rights violations.
- Under Article 1(1), States must organize governmental structures so they can ensure the free and full exercise of protected rights; formal guarantees are insufficient if ineffective in practice.
- In enforced-disappearance cases, proof may rest on circumstantial and contextual evidence, including patterns of conduct; human rights adjudication is not confined to domestic criminal-law evidentiary formalities.
- Enforced disappearance entails compound violations: unlawful deprivation of liberty (Art. 7), treatment amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment (Art. 5), and, where supported by context and inference, deprivation of life (Art. 4).
- Failure to conduct a serious, prompt, and effective investigation and to prosecute those responsible supports findings of breach of Article 1(1) and related remedial obligations.

## Conclusion

The Court found Honduras responsible for Velásquez Rodríguez’s enforced disappearance and resulting violations of liberty, humane treatment, and life, holding that Article 1(1) requires effective prevention, investigation, punishment, and reparation, and that such cases may be proved through contextual and circumstantial evidence tied to a demonstrated pattern of disappearances.


Velásquez Rodríguez Case, 28 I.L.M. 291 (Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. 1989)