6
suppositions and that the Court has the corresponding powers to apply the
Convention on torture, assess the violations committed, and issue the
corresponding statements and convictions. Thus has been done by the Tribunal in
several cases, without objection.
25.
On a later date than that of the instrument mentioned in the previous
paragraph, the Convention of the Forced Disappearance of Persons gave its own
formula in this field; the fourth formula within the totality. It states that the
processing of the petitions or communication on forced disappearances “shall be
subject to the procedures established in the American Convention on Human
Rights, and to the Statute and Regulations of the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights and to the Statute and Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights, including the provisions on precautionary measures.”
(Article XIII). It has been understood that the Inter-American Tribunal has
attributions to decide on the violations in this realm, without detriment of what it
already did in the exercise of the general competence granted to it by the ACHR
and in the terms of its substantive stipulations, as proven by the germinal
judgments of the Court in adjudicatory matters, specifically the famous judgment
issued in the Case of Velásquez Rodríguez, of June 26, 1987.
26.
Coinciding in date and place of subscription with that legal code on forced
disappearance, the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate
Violence against Women chose an expression different to all those mentioned up to
now –at the same time, different among themselves—to refer to the matter of
international control over the behavior that transgressed the duties assumed by the
State and therefore generates on its behalf, international responsibility demandable
before instances of the same nature. Thus, we are facing a fifth formula.
27.
Under the section “International mechanisms of protection”, the Convention
of Belém do Pará refers to the power of the States parties to it and of the InterAmerican Commission to request to the Court an advisory opinion on the
interpretation of the Convention itself (Article 11). This norm is not indispensable,
since the provisions of the ACHR on advisory matters (Article 64) are enough to
justify the Court’s competence in this sense. And in what refers to matters that
may have an adjudicatory nature, as of the violation of the Convention of Belém do
Pará –specifically the breach of Article 7--, it opens the door to the presentation of
complaints or claims before the Inter-American Commission, which “shall consider
such claims in accordance with the norms and procedures established by the
American Convention on Human Rights and the Statutes and Regulations of the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for lodging and considering
petitions.” (Article 12)
28.
As can be seen, the Convention of Belém puts emphasis on international
control to which it dedicates a specific chapter, which covers both informative
collaboration and its analysis (Article 10), and the advisory attention (Article 11),
and litigious considerations (Article 12). In other terms, the international normative
on the matter of acknowledgment of the rights and determination of public duties
has not wanted to stop, instead it has sought to ensure that such acknowledgment
and determination become real, and for that it has employed the means used, for
those purposes, by the international regulations: supervision and control under
bodies given the attributions to do so. In other terms: the Convention seeks to
ensure the effectiveness of its norms and the scope of its purposes.
29.
Article 7 of the Convention of Belém do Pará, mentioned in Article 12 of the
same and invoked in the Judgment of the Case of Castro Castro, includes an
emphatic conviction of all forms of violence against women, and gives the States
Parties to this Convention the responsibility of the assumption of “policies” oriented