ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF URGENT MEASURES IN PROTECTING AT-RISK DETAINEES IN LATIN-AMERICA

ongoing

Urgent Measures (UMs) are granted by international human rights (HRs) bodies to protect persons in a situation of extreme gravity/urgency. In Latin America, UMs are mostly granted to protect detainees, when their right to life, integrity and/or health are in danger of being violated. When a UM is granted, the state is requested to provide detainees with e.g. immediate access to medical care, drinking water, or sanitation. In such cases, UMs may prompt emergency protective actions that can, in the most extreme circumstances, save the life of the beneficiary of these measures. Though UMs have been issued on thousands of occasions, they have attracted little academic attention. The few studies that exist focus on a doctrinal analysis on compliance. Such studies have several shortcomings in that they primarily examine only procedural legal aspects, and often excessively rely on information provided by HRs bodies themselves. As UMs often face practical, financial and political constraints that shape and limit their implementation, it is crucial to establish a better understanding of how these measures are applied in practice. IMPACTUM moves beyond the traditional legal research questions and methods of analysing UMs. It instead proposes an interdisciplinary study of UMs that: 1) considers the context in which UMs are enforced and how they are applied on the ground; 2) assesses the impacts of UMs on detainees, legal/institutional systems and (inter)national actors; 3) discusses their strengths/limitations; 4) analyses their wider learning effects. With reference to UMs granted by 4 HRs bodies to protect at-risk detainees in 6 Latin American countries, IMPACTUM will develop a critical normative impact framework useful to provide a deeper theoretical analysis, as well as insight into how to formulate UMs to maximise their practical protective effects. IMPACTUM will thus uncover and present new knowledge on emerging issues with UMs that are currently unaddressed in academia.