Women and Justice: Keywords

International Case Law

Cantoral-Huamaní and García-Santa Cruz v. Peru Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2007)


Gender-based violence in general

The IACHR lodged an application against Peru for the violation, among other things, of the right to free association. Garcia-Santa Cruz was founder of a women's organization in a mining community, and provided support to the families of miners during a mining strike. Garcia-Santa Cruz was executed, and the Court held that her execution was an attempt to intimidate miners into not unionizing. The Court held this type of intimidation to be a violation of the freedom of association (Article 16 of the American Convention). The Court also found Peru to have violated Articles 1(1), 4, 5, 7, 8(1) and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights. The Court ordered Peru to investigate and punish those who carried out these violations, to publicly acknowledge international responsibility for these violations, to provide psychological services to the victims' next of kin, and to pay pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and costs.