The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights today made available online its Report on Citizen Security and Human Rights, which addresses the problem of common crime, State tactics for the prevention and punishment of crime, and the effect these have on the human rights of individuals. As reviewed in Chapter III of the report, the relatively high level of violent crime in some Member States of the Organization of American States, in addition to the relatively low level of successful prosecution of crimes, makes the issue of citizen security a prominent one in Latin American discourse (e.g. in Guatemala, where a special U.N.-backed commission has been established to address the problem of impunity).
Chapter II of the report defines the underlying human rights obligations of States when it comes to crime, in the following way:
the Commission considers that the current basis of the obligations incumbent upon States is a normative core demanding the protection of rights particularly vulnerable to criminal or violent acts that citizen security policies are intended to prevent and control. This group of rights includes the right to life, the right to physical integrity, the right to freedom, the right to due process and the right to the use and enjoyment of one’s property, without prejudice to other rights that will be specifically examined in the body of this report.
In addition to the recommendations directed at Member States, the main substance of the report is its Chapter IV, which considers States’ responsibility for the acts of its agents and third parties, obligations to adopt measures to prevent the violation of rights linked to citizen security, the duty to investigate, specific obligations in the area of violence against women under the Convention of Belém do Pará (on this topic, see for example the Inter-American Court’s decision in the Ciudad Juarez feminicide case “Cotton Field”), treatment of victims of crime, the phenomenon of privatization of citizen security, and the role of democratic institutions, police and armed forces.