Bringing Human Rights Home – Prof Caroline Bettinger Lopez visits Dublin

Published: Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Women's Human Rights Alliance had the pleasure of hosting a visit from Prof. Caroline Bettinger Lopez last week. Her visit was organised and sponsored by the Global Women's Studies Centre at NUI Galway. Caroline Bettinger-López is an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal Education and Director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University Of Miami School Of Law. She was the leading activist / academic in a recent successful case that was brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concerning the failure of the United States to enforce a restraining order and protect Jessica Lenehan Gonzales and her three daughters from domestic violence.  

In 1999, the Castle Rock, Colorado, police repeatedly refused to enforce an order of protection against Jessica's estranged husband, Simon, after he took their three children one evening without permission.  Early the next morning, Simon pulled up to the police station and began firing at the station with a gun he had purchased hours before.  Simon was shot dead by the police officers, and the three children, Rebecca (10), Kathryn (8), and Leslie (7) were found dead in the back of his truck.

Jessica sued the town of Castle Rock, Colorado, for non-enforcement of her restraining order, and pursued her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the Court found that she and other Americans have no Constitutional right to enforcement of their protective orders, Jessica continued on and became the first domestic violence victim to sue the U.S. government in an international human rights tribunal.

In 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) supported Jessica's argument and found U.S. domestic violence policies in violation of victims' human rights, including Jessica's and her children's, and further recommended changes to U.S. domestic violence law and policy. The case showed that states have a duty and responsibility to protect women from domestic violence and to punish perpetrators. This case framed domestic violence as a human rights issue.

There is a video and more information about the case on:

 www.jessicagonzalesvsunitedstates.com/news/