By Paola Limón 
Between 1960 and 1996, Guatemala suffered a violent internal armed conflict. During this time, it also managed to become a full member of the Inter-American Human Rights System: signing the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) in November 1969, ratifying it in April 1978 and accepting the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in May 1978.
Since 1996, the IACtHR has decided 25 cases against Guatemala; making it the country with the second highest number of contentious cases decided by the IACtHR (Peru is first, with 42 cases since 1995). Of these 25 cases, Guatemala has only fully complied with one. In this regard, on 21 September 2017, the IACtHR notified its monitoring compliance resolution of 30 August 2017, declaring that Guatemala had fully complied with its judgment of 3 May 2016 in the Case of Maldonado Ordóñez.
Although this might seem like an inconsequential matter at first glance, it is unprecedented that Guatemala fully complied with an IACtHR judgment; even more so, considering that it happened in approximately 14 months. But a closer look into the merits proceedings and reparations orders in this case, reveals that full implementation of this judgment was only possible, in time and substance, due to an error attributable –not exclusively– to the IACtHR. This post, product of the ESRC Human Rights Law Implementation Project –HRLIP– (see endnote), seeks to explore those aspects of the IACtHR’s proceedings and orders in this case, which facilitated implementation of the judgment.
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