On Feminicidio and Due Diligence: State Responsibility and Human Rights Practices in Latin America to Combat the Killing of Women

Feminicidio is a term coined by Latin American feminist scholars and human rights activists engaged in the combat of violence against women in various Latin American states. Salient in the concept of feminicidio is the notion of state responsibility for systemic gendered violence that results in women’s deaths, whether at the hands of private or state actors. The notion of state responsibility for the actions of private individuals is also at the core of the principle of due diligence in international human rights law. It was first applied in the landmark case of Velásquez Rodríguez vs. Honduras, tried at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). Since then, feminist human rights scholars and activists to combat violence against women have appropriated the concept. It has been further mobilized through the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and the work of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR). This paper examines the meeting of the concept of feminicidio and the principle of due diligence as part of a broader transnational movement that has constructed violence against women as a human rights violation. In particular, the paper focuses on the feminist human rights scholars and activists’ mobilization of these concepts in the case of González and others (“Cotton Field”) vs. Mexico at the IACtHR, in which the Court ruled that the Mexican state had failed to prevent, punish, and properly investigate the deaths of women in Ciudad Juárez. I analyze the meeting of feminicidio and due diligence in this case as an example of the growing strength of human rights practices in Latin America to combat violence against women.