Reference:
Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 205 (Nov. 16, 2009)
Annotation:
The Cotton Field petition concerned the
State's response to the disappearance,
torture and murder of three young girls
near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose bodies
were among eight found in a cotton field.
This case is noteworthy for its
application of the due diligence standard
to assess the State's response to the
girls' disappearances. The Court found the
murders formed part of a systematic
pattern of gender-based human rights
abuses in the Ciudad Juarez region, as the
murders shared common factors that were
indicative of a pattern of violence
against women. The Court highlighted that
the victims were primarily girl children,
a particularly vulnerable group identified
in Article 9 of the Convention of Belem do
Para. The Court also concluded that the
police investigation of the disappearances
was inefficient, incompetent and
insensitive, and that this failure
contributed to a climate of impunity in
the Ciudad Juarez region. The Court
consequently held that Mexico was in
violation of Articles 4(1), 5(1), 5(2) and
7(1) of the American Convention on Human
Rights (CADH), namely the rights to life,
personal integrity and liberty of the
named victims. The Court also found that
these rights were violated in connection
to Articles 19 and 1(1). However, the
Court placed an important limitation on
the States obligation of due diligence,
noting that a pattern of systemic violence
against women does not give rise in and of
itself to obligations towards individual
victims. It was only once the girls were
reported missing by their families that a
strict due diligence obligation was
triggered.