On Tuesday, March 3, the Honorable Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, presented a lecture on “Criminal Law in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights” at Fordham Law. The event was hosted by the Global Law Society, the Latin American Law Students Association, and the Office of International and Non-J.D. Programs.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is responsible for overseeing compliance with the American Convention of Human Rights. Twenty-five of the 35 member states within the Organization of American States have ratified the Convention.
During his talk, Mac-Gregor spoke extensively on the Inter-American Court’s history and the treaties that helped inform its creation. He also explained the scope of the Court’s jurisdiction. Judge Mac-Gregor said the Court hears cases on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, extrajudicial execution, military jurisdiction, amnesty laws, abuse in the exercise of freedom of expression, and capital punishment. According to Mac-Gregor, forced disappearance of persons make up 22% of the cases heard by the court.
“The Inter-American Court has considered [forced disappearance]as a phenomenon characterized by multiple and continued violations of several rights of the American Convention,” he said. “It not only produces an arbitrary deprivation of freedom but also violates the integrity and personal security of a person and the very life of the detainee, placing it in a state of complete helplessness, which opens the door for related crimes like torture or murder.”
Because the American Convention does not expressively forbid the forced disappearance of persons, the Inter-American Court has established criteria for measuring whether or not a case presented adheres to its definition. Fourteen member states have been found responsible for this crime.
Mac-Gregor went on to address the court’s current challenges, including the absence of women serving on the court. He explained that in June the court will be selecting four new judges who will take their positions in January 2016.
Over the course of his career, Mac-Gregor has served in several non-judicial capacities in the Supreme Court of Mexico, a Member of the Academic and Editorial Committee of the Electoral Tribunal of the Mexican Federal Judicial Authority, and Executive Secretary of the Drafting Committee of the Ethics Code of the Mexican Federal Judiciary. He has also authored 37 books and monographs and has written more than 100 chapters and forwards in other works. He is a professor at the Pan-American University in Mexico City and a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).