Forced Disappearances in the Inter-American Human Rights System

Abstract

The chapter explains the approach taken toward disappearances by the mechanisms that comprise the Inter-American System of Human Rights. Inter-American jurisprudence is a tool that is not only useful in litigation within the regional system but also constitutes a fundamental tool which can be adapted for domestic litigation and the construction of public policies in the countries in the region. The chapter argues that the institutional history of the Inter-American System has been shaped by victims and their families as well as by a human rights movement that was itself forged in the struggle against the gravest human rights violations of authoritarian regimes, which were often committed against political opponents. Today that system serves to respond to the new wave of disappearances in post-transitional contexts.