ABSTRACT
Over the past quarter-century, the long-running civil war in Colombia has come to be defined by the perpetration of a succession of appalling human rights violations against civilians. Even within that context, the Mapiripán massacre of 15-20 July 1997 proved a seminal event. On 5 September 2003, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filed the case Massacre of Mapiripán (Masacre de Mapiripán) before the IACHR. Petitions from two leading NGOs accused the federal government of Colombia with complicity and support in the massacre. The IACHR’s ruling against Colombia in the Mapiripán case has invoked both new hopes and new concerns with respect to the use of adjudication as a form of conflict management.
