40
105. The Court has verified the consolidation, at the international level, of the
analysis of this crime, which constitutes a serious human rights violation given the
particular relevance of the violations it encompasses and the nature of the injured
right.131 The practice of enforced disappearance implies a gross abandonment of the
essential principles upon which the Inter-American System of Human Rights is
founded132 and its prohibition is of jus cogens nature.133
106. The State’s obligation to prevent encompasses all the measures of a legal,
political, administrative and cultural nature that promote the safeguard of human
rights.134 As such, the deprivation of liberty in legally recognized facilities and the
existence of a record of the detainees constitute fundamental safeguards, inter alia,
against enforced disappearance. In contrario sensu, the commissioning and
maintenance of clandestine detention centers constitutes per se an infringement to
the obligation to guarantee, because it directly threatens the right to personal
liberty, personal integrity, life135, and juridical personality. 136
107. Now, given that one of the objectives of enforced disappearance is to prevent
the exercise of legal remedies and the relevant procedural guarantees, when a
person is kidnapped, detained, or experiences any other form of deprivation of
liberty in order to carry out the enforced disappearance of the person, if the victim
cannot access the available remedies, its fundamental that the next of kin or other
close persons have access to quick and effective procedures or judicial remedies so
as to allow for the determination of the whereabouts or medical condition of said
person or to identify the authority that ordered the deprivation of liberty or made it
effective.137
humanity, non expiring and not subject to amnesty); Federal Chambers of Appeals of Criminal and
Correctional Matters of Argentia, Case of Videla et al., Judgment of September 9, 1999 (declaring that
the enforced disappearances are continous crimes against humanity); Constitutional Court of Bolivia,
Case of José Carlos Trujillo, Judgment of November 12, 2001; Constitutional Court of Peru, Case of
Castillo Páez, Judgment of March 18, 2004 (declaring, for purposes of that ordered by the Inter-American
Court in the same case, that enforced disappearances is a permanent crime until the wherabouts of the
victim are known), and the Supreme Court of Justice of Uruguay, Case of Juan Carlos Blanco and Case of
Gavasso et al., Judgments of October 18 and 17, 2002, respectively.
130
Cf. Case of Goiburú et al. v. Paraguay. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of September
22, 2006. Series C No. 153, para. 83; Case of Chitay Nech et al., supra note 25, para. 85, and Case of
Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 60.
131
Cf. Case of Goiburú et al., supra note 130, para. 84; Case of Chitay Nech et al., supra note 25,
para. 86, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 61.
132
Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez. Merits, supra note 25, para. 158; Case of Chitay Nech et al.,
supra note 25, para. 86, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 61.
133
Cf. Case of Goiburú et al., supra note 130, para. 84; Case of Chitay Nech et al., supra note 25,
para. 86, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 61.
134
Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez. Merits, supra note 25, para. 175; Case of González et al. (“the
Cotton Field”) v. México. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November
16, 2009. Series C No. 205, para. 252, para. 252, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra
note 24, para. 63.
135
Cf. Case of Anzualdo Castro, supra note 122, para. 63, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen
Peña, supra note 24, para. 63.
136
Cf. Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 63.
137
Cf. Case of Anzualdo Castro v. Perú, supra note 122, para. 64; Case of Radilla Pacheco, supra
note 24, para. 141, and Case of Ibsen Cárdenas and Ibsen Peña, supra note 24, para. 64.
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