## Facts

- Ángel Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez, a Honduran university student, was seized on September 12, 1981, in Tegucigalpa by individuals identified as members of Honduran security and military intelligence.
- Witnesses reported he was taken to a security forces station, interrogated and tortured, and later transferred to a military battalion.
- Honduran authorities denied detaining him, provided no effective information on his whereabouts, and he disappeared.
- The events occurred amid evidence of a broader early-1980s practice in Honduras of enforced disappearances carried out by, or with the acquiescence of, State agents.
- The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights processed a petition concerning his detention and disappearance; after inadequate State responses, it referred the matter to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, alleging violations of the American Convention on Human Rights.

## Issues

1. Whether Honduras bore international responsibility for Velásquez Rodríguez’s disappearance despite the absence of direct proof of his fate and State denial of detention.
2. Whether State responsibility for a specific disappearance could be established through circumstantial evidence and proof of a broader pattern or practice.
3. Whether Article 1(1) imposes affirmative duties to prevent, investigate, and punish violations and to provide remedies and reparations, including where violations involve clandestine action or acquiesced private conduct.
4. Whether the disappearance violated Articles 4 (life), 5 (humane treatment), and 7 (personal liberty), in relation to Article 1(1).

## Decision

- The Court held Honduras internationally responsible for the enforced disappearance of Ángel Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez.
- The Court found violations of Article 7 (arbitrary detention and incommunicado custody), Article 5 (cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment), and Article 4 (deprivation of life), each in relation to Article 1(1).
- The Court accepted proof by indicia and presumptions in light of clandestine State practices and drew adverse inferences from the State’s failure to provide a satisfactory explanation.
- The Court ordered Honduras to investigate the facts, identify and punish those responsible, and provide fair compensation to the victim’s relatives, along with measures aimed at non-repetition.

## Legal Principles

- Enforced disappearance constitutes a multiple, continuous violation involving a sequence of State acts and omissions (detention, denial or concealment, and failure to investigate) that persists while the person’s fate remains unknown.
- In cases involving clandestine violations, international adjudicators may rely on circumstantial evidence, patterns of conduct, indicia, and presumptions; a demonstrated practice can support findings regarding an individual case.
- Article 1(1) requires States not only to refrain from violating rights, but also to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and punish violations and to provide reparations; responsibility may arise from direct State action or State support, acquiescence, or failure to act.
- Arbitrary detention and the obstruction of effective recourse (including through denial of detention and information) violate Article 7’s guarantees of liberty and control of detention.
- Prolonged incommunicado detention, torture, and the severe suffering caused by disappearance can establish violations of Article 5; the disappearance context may permit inference of such treatment.
- A right-to-life violation may be found without recovery of a body where the proven context and evidence support the conclusion that the disappeared person was killed by, or attributable to, State agents.

## Conclusion

The Court determined that Honduras was responsible for Velásquez Rodríguez’s enforced disappearance and resulting violations of liberty, humane treatment, and life, and it defined Article 1(1) as imposing due-diligence duties to prevent, investigate, punish, and repair human rights violations proven through circumstantial evidence and demonstrated State practice.


Velásquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (Ser. C) No. 4 (1988)