Commentary on the Judgment Miembros de la Corporación Colectivo de Abogados “José Alvear Restrepo” v. Colombia

Emphasizing Informational Self-Determination as a Condition for the Exercise of the Right to Defend Human Rights

Abstract

Summary – Unofficial Headnotes

(1) The establishment of a regime of state intelligence and surveillance without prior adoption of clear laws and legal norms – defining procedures, limiting access and data sharing, and ensuring that intelligence activities serve purposes consistent with the normative standards of a democratic society – is incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR).
(2) The exercise of state intelligence inherently tends to interfere with the rights to privacy, confidentiality, data protection, and informational self-determination. Accordingly, for an intelligence framework to be compatible with the ACHR, it must establish objective structures that comply with human rights standards and, moreover, create space for the exercise of individual rights.
(3) State surveillance structures must coexist harmoniously with the protection of human rights and with activities functionally linked to that purpose. States have not only a negative obligation to refrain from hindering the work of human rights defenders, but also a positive obligation to actively ensure safe and stable conditions in which such actors can carry out their activities without risks to their lives or those of their families.
(4) The Republic of Colombia failed to establish an adequate normative framework for state intelligence, particularly with respect to ensuring and promoting the protection of privacy, data protection, and informational self-determination of human rights defenders (Art. 11 para. 2, 3, Art. 13 para. 1), as well as safeguarding their function and, consequently, the right to defend human rights in the country (Art. 1 para. 1, Art. 4 para. 1, Art. 5 para. 1, Art. 8 para. 1, Art. 13 para. 1, Art. 16 para. 1, Art. 25 para. 1 ACHR).
(5) The Republic of Colombia, actively engaged in conduct that violated the human rights of human rights defenders, including their informational rights, as well as their rights to life (Art. 4 ACHR), personal integrity (Art. 4 para. 1, Art. 5 para. 1, 2 ACHR), freedom of expression and association (Art. 13 para. 1, Art. 16 para. 1 ACHR), honor (Art. 11 para. 1 ACHR), the right to know the truth (Art. 13 ACHR), freedom of movement and residence (Art. 22 para. 1 ACHR), protection of the family (Art. 17 para. 1 ACHR), and the rights of the children (Art. 19 ACHR), right of access to justice and judicial protection (Art. 8 para. 1, Art. 25 ACHR), and women’s rights and the corresponding duty to protect those rights, as set forth in the Convention of Belém do Pará (CBP) (Art. 1 para. 1, 2 CBP).