By Francesco Seatzu, Full Professor of International Law, University of Cagliari, Italy
Giacomo Turra, a twenty-four year old Italian student, died in police custody in Cartagena de Indias on 3rd September 1995. The official version provided by Colombia over three decades after his death was that Giacomo committed suicide or had an overdose of drugs. The May 2026 agreement wherein Colombia officially recognized its international responsibility for Giacomo’s killing through unlawful use of force, is not only a long overdue compensation for the wrong done to him. It demonstrates that the structural conditions enabling impunity can, through sustained engagement with international human rights mechanisms, ultimately be overcome.
This wider context is inherently tied up with the more extensive history of Colombia within the framework of the Inter-American system. Colombia is one of the States with the most petition cases awaiting action before the Commission and has gone through many controversial cases before the Court concerning substantially similar behavior, including the diversion of police complaints about mistreatment to military tribunals, the construction of exonerating narratives, and the refusal to implement the necessary reforms mandated under Article 2 of the ACHR. The Paro Nacional in 2021 is an example of how this trend continues into the current decade – the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the United Nations has cited killings, eye damage, and sexual violence caused by the National Police once again.[^0] The Turra case is no outlier.
This case is linked to a number of different yet interconnected aspects of Inter-American jurisprudence, namely, the scope of positive obligations with regard to Article 4, 5, 7, 8 and 25 ACHR; the limited scope of military criminal jurisdiction when dealing with civilian matters; the procedural duty of investigation as a result of the Velásquez Rodríguez standard for due diligence; and the legally mandatory nature of symbolic reparation for addressing the aspect of injury not addressed by financial compensation.[^1]
§ I: What Happened to Giacomo Turra — and Why the Military Court Was Never the Right Answer
Giacomo Turra went into a restaurant on 3 September 1995, when he was clearly in a state of distress. The events that ensued—being violently restrained, being admitted to hospital for sedation, being taken to the police station, and then back to hospital where he eventually died—make up what both the Commission and the Court describe as a cycle of custodial ill-treatment.
The domestic reaction is all too familiar—the security forces being backed by the institutions, the framing of the victim, the institutional construction of a narrative attributing Turra’s death to his own conduct — a characterisation that the settlement expressly repudiates — and the referral of the case to military courts.
The previous issue carries legal weight. The Court has recognized that military criminal jurisdiction is inconsistent with the investigation of human rights abuses suffered by civilians. Such recognition is based upon two separate rationales [^2]. The first is the incapacity of military tribunals to ensure the requirements of judicial independence and impartiality set out in Art. 8(1) ACHR. The second is the inability of such tribunals to fulfill the procedural obligation to investigate, as required by Art. 4 ACHR. The acquittal in 1998 was not only procedurally wrong but carried out by an organ lacking competence in accordance with the Convention [^3]. It is this structurally incompetent acquittal — producing domestic finality without international finality — that created the conditions for the Inter-American system’s preservative function to operate.
§ II: The Duty to Investigate: Not Just a Procedural Nicety
Pursuant to Article 1(1) ACHR, the State has the obligation to prevent, investigate, punish and ensure non-recurrence of breaches. Each of them gives rise to separate obligations. The cases of Myrna Mack Chang and Caracazo have shown that inadequate investigation after the incident could amount to a separate violation of Articles 8 and 25 of the ACHR regardless of the existence of the substantive violation.[^4]. In the Turra case, both wrongs were present: the original use of unlawful force, and the subsequent failure to investigate it effectively — a failure compounded by the active construction of an exculpatory narrative. Although the 2026 agreement does not explicitly state these doctrinal conclusions, the fact that it takes responsibility for Turra’s murder means that the domestic process, including the military acquittal, does not fulfill Colombia’s investigation responsibilities.
In addition to being the mere starting point of proceedings, the duty to investigate is one that must be effective, aimed at uncovering the facts, determining responsibility and making possible the prosecution. A military judicial investigation that fails to meet any of these criteria cannot satisfy the duty. It is in light of this fundamental deficiency in the process that the Turra case implicated both Article 8 and Article 4.
§ III: Why 28 Years Is Not the Point
The case was initiated in 1996, admissible in 2001, and the merits decision sent in 2024 — a process taking almost three decades. Prior to dealing with the obvious criticism, one should understand exactly what role the Inter-American system played in this particular context.
There are three roles that are traditionally associated with international human rights litigation: public sanction of the States, deterrence of future violations, and compensation for victims. Each of these three roles presupposes termination of the process. But the preservative role is different: it takes place prior to the completion of the process, safeguarding the legal contestability of the impunity narratives created by the States [^5].
However, this function differs in its structural form from the three traditional functions of international adjudication. Both sanctioning, deterrence and reparation require the conclusion of the process. The preservative function works independently of any results achieved by the process; its value is created once the petition is found admissible and international legal proceedings against the domestic story become formally possible. In the Turra case, it was not the finding of admissibility of 2001 that settled the issue of violation of the ACHR committed by Colombia. What it did was to make the decision of 1998 acquitting the military officers in Colombia on the international level nonfinal. For twenty-three years, the Colombian State was unable to close the file and refer to the doctrine of res judicata, unable to shut up the Commission. This constant surveillance, not the fear of enforcement, made the parties agree to settle the issue on May 2026.
The admissibility decision in 2001 had three legal repercussions for Colombia: there was a procedural duty for Colombia to collaborate with the Commission; there could be no res judicata in relation to the acquittal in an international context; and finally, the monitoring function of the Commission became operative, obliging Colombia to justify its case at each successive phase. In 2024, the Article 50 report formalized the findings of the Commission, presenting Colombia with a Hobson’s choice between a solution with an admission of responsibility on its part, or else a judicial ruling from the Court. The settlement of May 2026 was the product of that constrained choice, not through any enforcement process but through the constant normative pressure of an ongoing procedure that Colombia lacked legally in an international context.[^6]
In the Turra case, we can thus see how the preservative function cannot be considered an award to a delayed judicial process. It is a legally indispensable role that only the international tribunal could have carried out.
§ IV: Colombia’s Pattern — and Why It Matters Legally
The problems noted in Colombian cases by the Inter-American system include the diversion of complaints concerning human rights abuse to military jurisdiction, victim-delegitimation stories, and lack of reforms at the domestic level. In the Las Palmeras case, the Court observed the inappropriate use of military tribunals in a civilian case where violence from the police was involved. In Caballero Delgado, the violations of Articles 4, 5, and 7 were related to forced disappearances and inadequate investigations.[^7] Such judgments established obligations under Article 2 ACHR in terms of reforms needed in the national legislation of Colombia. Non-compliance with such reforms was seen in the Turra case, as well as in the 2022 OHCHR report on the Paro Nacional.[^8]
Article 2 ACHR demands that States take such measures as are necessary for the implementation of the rights under the Convention, which may include both legal and other measures, including law reforms, prosecutorial strategies, judges’ trainings, and organizational restructuring. The referral of the Turra case to military jurisdiction was not a procedural anomaly — it was precisely the institutional pattern that Article 2 ACHR mandates States to dismantle through legislative and structural reform.
§ V: A Memorial Plaque Is Not Enough — But It Is Required
Public acknowledgment of liability and installation of a plaque of remembrance at the Turra case site do not constitute mere symbolic acts. In accordance with Article 63(1) ACHR, these acts are essential elements of reparations when the injury has an aspect of dignity which is beyond monetary redress. The right to the truth consists of the right to know what happened, the right to official acknowledgment, and the right to protect the memory of the victim from official distortions.[^9]
However, it cannot be said that the story was only a misrepresentation of facts. One can argue – even though there is no clear mention in the settlement to that effect – that it amounted to a legal injury since the state caused emotional pain to the family of Turra through its denial of his death and its attribution to his own actions.
Such a denial for three decades would, in the light of the Court’s well-established jurisprudence, amount to an independent violation of Article 5 ACHR through the emotional distress caused to the family members. While we cannot be sure whether this finding is explicitly incorporated within the terms of the agreement, its public acknowledgment implicitly disavows the story line that led to it. According to the ruling in González et al. (‘Cotton Field’) v. Mexico, institutional stigmatization of the victims as morally contaminated is an aggravating circumstance that affects the assessment of reparation in that it amounts to an additional humiliation of the victim. [^10] Thus, the repudiation of the official narrative creates an official record which precludes any future attempts at reconstructing the facts.
§ VI: Yes, 28 Years Is Too Long. No, That Is Not the Right Critique.
It took twenty-eight years for the inter-American system to come up with a solution to the problem. This is an inexcusable amount of time to wait for a resolution.
However, the question of speed should not be used as the criterion in assessing the preservative role, which is not intended to deliver immediate outcomes. This role aims at keeping the door open when it was shut down by domestic agencies. In the Turra affair, what was being preserved during three decades, four Colombian administrations, and a military judgment not guilty, was the legal possibility of accountability. Otherwise, there would not have been any settlement in May 2026. Not because the process forced Colombia to settle it, but because it did not let Colombia close the case.
There has been no domestic body, whether civil court, prosecutor, ombudsman, or truth commission, capable of sustaining a formal legal challenge to the version of events put forth by the Colombian state for almost three decades. It was the mechanism of the petition that accomplished this feat. The agreement reached in May 2026 was not just the solution to an individual case.
Four Things the Turra Case Settles
Referral of cases regarding violations of human rights to military tribunals when the victim is a civilian itself violates Articles 8 and 25 ACHR. The verdict given in 1998 was procedurally flawed and could not satisfy the procedures stipulated by the Inter-American system.[^11]
In addition, the duty to conduct investigations pursuant to Articles 4, 1(1), 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights cannot be met through the initiation of a process in an incompetent forum. The breach is autonomous and thus constitutes separate State responsibility.
Third, the creation of delegitimizing narratives about victims by state institutions constitutes an international responsibility for the violation of the right to truth and the dignitary dimension of Article 5 ACHR — a proposition supported by the Court’s jurisprudence and implicitly confirmed by the settlement’s public acknowledgement of responsibility.
Fourth, the value of the Inter-American system cannot be assessed solely against the criteria of enforcement speed or compliance rates. The Turra case proves that in international human rights cases, adjudication has a distinctive constitutional role to play in the preservation of contestability of the impunity narrative constructed by the State over decades, changing governments, and established stories. Such a role, which cannot be substituted for by any domestic institution, was performed by the petition mechanism from 1996 to 2026, and proven by the May 2026 agreement.
[^0] U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Situation of Human Rights in Colombia, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/49/17, ¶¶ 20–34 (Feb. 24, 2022)
[1] See Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 4, ¶¶ 164–174 (July 29, 1988)
[2] Castillo Petruzzi et al. v. Peru, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 52, ¶ 128 (May 30, 1999).
[3] Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 209, ¶ 272 (Nov. 23, 2009); Durand and Ugarte v. Peru, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 68, ¶ 117 (Aug. 16, 2000).
[4] Myrna Mack Chang v. Guatemala, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 101, ¶ 156 (Nov. 25, 2003); Caracazo v. Venezuela, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 95, ¶ 115 (Aug. 29, 2002).
[5] American Convention on Human Rights art. 48(1)(f), Nov. 22, 1969, O.A.S.T.S. No. 36, 1144 U.N.T.S. 123; Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arts. 40–41 (2013); Loayza Tamayo v. Peru, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 33, ¶ 80 (Sept. 17, 1997).
[6] L. Helfer & A.-M. Slaughter, Toward a Theory of Effective Supranational Adjudication, 107 Yale L.J. 273, 287–290 (1997).
[7] Las Palmeras v. Colombia, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 90, ¶¶ 52–58 (Dec. 6, 2001); Caballero Delgado and Santana v. Colombia, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 22, ¶¶ 56–58 (Dec. 8, 1995).
[8] U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, supra note 0, ¶¶ 20–34.
[9] “Street Children” (Villagrán Morales et al.) v. Guatemala, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 77, ¶¶ 84–103 (May 26, 2001); Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala, Reparations, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 116, ¶ 100 (Nov. 19, 2004).
[10] González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 205, ¶¶ 408–413 (Nov. 16, 2009); Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala, Merits, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 70, ¶¶ 160–163 (Nov. 25, 2000).
[11] Palamara Iribarne v. Chile, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 135, ¶ 124 (Nov. 22, 2005).
