Separate Opinion of Judge A.A. Cançado Trindade in the Case of Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala (Judgment of 27.11.2003)

Chapter Summary

In its final written arguments, of 24 June 2003, in the present case Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights distinguished between the responsibility of the State per se and the individual penal responsibility of the agents of the State. In the present case of Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala, the crime of State is materialized both by the execution (planned as from the highest rank of the public power) of the anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang, as well as by the subsequent cover-up of the facts, the obstruction of justice, and the impunity of those responsible for it, thus generating an aggravated responsibility. The facts of the present case demonstrate that the crime of the state does not exist and indicate that most of the contemporary doctrine of international law is mistaken in attempting to elude the legal question.

Keywords: anthropologist; crime; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; international law; justice; Myrna Mack Chang versus Guatemala; State