I INTRODUCTION OF THE CASE AND PURPOSE OF THE DISPUTE 1. In a brief of July 8, 2011 (hereinafter “submission brief”), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Inter-American Commission” or “the Commission”) submitted to the Court’s jurisdiction, in accordance with Articles 51 and 61 of the Convention, case 12,416 against the Republic of Colombia (hereinafter also “the State” or “Colombia”). 2. In general, the proceedings before the Commission occurred as follows: the initial petition was lodged before the Commission on April 18, 2002, by the following organizations: the Comisión Interfranciscana de Justicia, Paz y Reverencia con la Creación, the “Joel Sierra” Regional Human Rights Committee, the “José Alvear Restrepo” Lawyers’ Group, the Humanidad Vigente Corporación Jurídica, and the Center for International Human Rights of the Northwestern University School of Law (hereinafter “the petitioners”). On March 6, 2003, the Commission approved Admissibility Report No. 25/03.2 On March 24, 2011, the Commission approved Report on Merits No. 61/11 (hereinafter “Merits Report”) under Article 50 of the Convention, in which it concluded that the State was responsible for various violations of the Convention and made certain recommendations to the State.3 This report was notified to the State on April 8, 2011, and it was granted two months to report on compliance with the recommendations. In a communication of June 7, 2011, the State requested an extension to present information in this regard, and this was granted until June 30, 2011. In view of the State’s failure to present information, the Commission decided to submit the case to the Court, for “all the facts and human rights violations described in Merits Report 61/11.” The Commission appointed Commissioner María Silvia Guillén and the Commission’s Executive Secretary at the time, Santiago A. Cantón, as delegates, and Elizabeth Abi-Mershed, Deputy Executive Secretary, and Silvia Serrano Guzmán and María José Veramendi, lawyers of the Executive Secretariat, as legal advisers. 3. According to the Commission, the case refers to an alleged bombardment perpetrated by the Colombian Air Force on the village of Santo Domingo, municipality of Tame, department of Arauca, on December 13, 1998. In its Merits Report, the Commission considered that, on December 13, 1998, at 10.02 a.m., the crew of a helicopter of the Colombian Air Force (FAC) launched a cluster device, composed of six fragmentation bombs, on the urban area of the village of Santo Domingo, resulting in the death of 17 civilians, including four boys and two girls, and 27 injured civilians, including five girls and four boys. The Commission noted that the members of the Armed Forces who formed the crew of the aircraft were aware that these persons were civilians. In addition, it considered probable that, following the explosion, the survivors and injured were machine-gunned from a helicopter when they tried to assist the injured and to flee the village. It 2 In this report, the Commission concluded that the petition was admissible, under the requirements established in en Articles 46 and 47 of the American Convention, based on the presumed violation of the right to life, personal integrity, judicial guarantees, property, rights of the child, and judicial protection established in Articles 4, 5, 8, 19, 21 and 25 of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1 (1) and 2 of this instrument. IACHR Report 25/03, petition 289-02, Admissibility, Santo Domingo, Colombia, March 6, 2003. 3 In its Merits Report, the Commission made the following recommendations to the State: (1) conduct an impartial and thorough investigation within a reasonable time in order to prosecute and punish all those who carried out and masterminded the human rights violations found in the instant report; (2) investigate the link between State agents and the extractive company that operates in the area where the facts occurred and adopt the adequate measures to prevent that the facts described in this report happen again; (3) establish, with the participation of the community in its design and implementation, a collective reparation mechanism that recognizes the impact that the bombardment had on the civilian population of the village of Santo Domingo to remedy the grave and durable consequences for the community as a whole and that takes into consideration development initiatives on health, housing and education; (4) adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent a repetition of patterns of violence against the civilian population in keeping with the duty to protect and ensure the fundamental rights recognized in the American Convention. In particular, implement permanent programs on human rights and international humanitarian law in the armed forces training schools; (5) provide adequate reparation for the human rights violations found in the instant report in material as well as moral respects, including elucidation and circulation of the truth of the events, remembrance of the deceased victims, and implementation of an adequate program of psychosocial care for surviving family members, and (6) provide reparation to the children affected by the bombardment of the village of Santo Domingo through measures in which the best interest of the child prevails, the respect for their dignity, the right of children to participate, as well as the respect for their opinions in the process of design and implementation of the reparatory measures. Cf. Merits Report No. 61/11, Merits, Tome I, folio 44. Available at: http://www.cidh.oas.org/demandas/12.416ESP.pdf ‐ 5 ‐