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Forced Sterilisation before the Inter-American Court: Between Progress and Silence in Ramos Durand v. Peru

April 1, 2026

Anna Kohte

On 5 March, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR) notified its long-awaited judgment in Celia Edith Ramos Durand v. Peru. The case concerns the forced sterilisation of Celia Edith Ramos Durand and stands for thousands of predominantly Indigenous women who were sterilised under coercive conditions in Peru in the late 1990s. It is only the second judgment in which the Court addressed forced sterilisation, following I.V. v. Bolivia. The judgment has been widely welcomed as an important step toward justice in a challenging domestic context. It also contains notable ‘firsts’, including the majority’s decision to analyse the facts under the right to health and their characterisation as reproductive violence. At the same time, it raises important concerns. Most notably, the Court declined to qualify the acts as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and refrained from recognising the forced sterilisations as crimes against humanity – a qualification it has made in previous judgments in relation to other underlying acts.

“Detained or Not Detained”: The First General Comment of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture

April 11, 2025

Elīna Šteinerte

The Optional Protocol to the UN Torture Convention (OPCAT) is unique amongst the UN human rights treaties and their Optional Protocols. Unique as it is not normative because it does not set out a new right which would be additional to those elaborated in the Torture Convention itself. Nor is it purely procedural as it…

Monitoring migrants’ human rights at the EU borders: EU law v the UN OPCAT?

February 27, 2025

Isobel Renzulli

The present contribution provides some preliminary considerations concerning the compatibility between the EU independent national mechanisms (INMs) to be set up under EU regulation 2024/1356 and the National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) set up under the 2002 UN Optional Protocol for the Prevention of Torture. Should existing NPMs be tasked with the EU monitoring mandate envisaged under the regulation,…

Manuela et al. v. El Salvador: The Pitfalls of a Landmark Case for Reproductive Justice from a Torture Perspective

June 27, 2023

María Fernanda Perico

María Camila Castellanos

On November 30, 2021, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) published its judgment in Manuela et al v. El Salvador. The case concerned El Salvador’s responsibility for the arbitrary detention, torture, and conviction of a woman who experienced an obstetric emergency and lost her pregnancy in 2008. The dispute took place in the context…

What’s at Stake in the Abortion Case Before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights?

March 16, 2023

Alicia Ely Yamin

Sabrina Ochoa

El Salvador’s punitive treatment of women through its absolute criminalization of abortion will come under scrutiny by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the “Court”) on March 22-23, in a case involving the state’s treatment of a woman in need of a life-saving abortion. Beatriz was a young woman from the impoverished state of Usulután,…

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Domesticating the Law of Immunity: The Supreme Court of Canada in Kazemi v Iran

November 7, 2014

Ben Batros & Philippa Webb

International lawyers typically think that when a case deals with a matter of international law, once you know the position under international law, then this will give you the answer. Unfortunately, before domestic courts, that is not always the case. Late last month, the Canadian Supreme Court issued its judgment in Kazemi Estate v. Islamic Republic of…

Prosecutions of US Officials for Torture? Some Issues

February 8, 2009

Dapo Akande

Leon Panetta, US President Obama's nominee to be Director of the CIA, stated in his confirmation hearings last Thursday that he believes waterboarding to be torture (see here). This is the third admission in recent weeks by senior US officials (or prospective officials) that the US has tortured some of the persons detained now detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similar…

The role of legitimacy and proportionality in the (supposedly absolute) prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment: the United Kingdom’s High Court decisions in DD v Secretary of State

December 22, 2015

Stevie Martin

In the United Kingdom High Court (Administrative) decision of DD v Secretary of State for Home Department [2014] (‘DD’) Ouseley J was required to consider, on a preliminary basis, whether the imposition of a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (‘TPIM’) (the successor of control orders) had violated the appellant’s right to freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment…

Habib v Commonwealth of Australia: A Twist on Actions Against State Officials for Torture

March 4, 2010

Ben Batros & Philippa Webb

Ben Batros is Appeals Counsel at the International Criminal Court and a former Senior Legal Officer, International Crime Branch, Australian Attorney-General’s Department. Philippa Webb, is Visiting Assistant Professor at Leiden University and former Special Assistant to President of the International Court of Justice Last week (on 25 February), the Australian Federal Court handed down its…