Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Violation: Gonzales v United States

The American Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Castle Rock v. Gonzales left many domestic violence and women’s rights activists deeply concerned. In 1999, Gonzales’ daughters were abducted by her estranged husband in violation of a protective order. That evening, Gonzales unsuccessfully attempted to get the Castle Rock Police Department to take action. Her husband later arrived at the police station, where he instigated a shootout that took his life. The bodies of the three abducted children were found in his truck afterward.

Gonzales sued the Town of Castle Rock, alleging that the officers’ failure to use every reasonable means to enforce her restraining order against her husband violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected this reasoning, holding that domestic violence victims do not have a constitutional entitlement to enforcement of their protective orders. Police work, the Court ruled, involves discretionary decisions to exercise authority. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, wrote that a benefit is not a protected entitlement if government officials have the discretion to grant or deny it. This result left domestic violence advocates effectively toothless in pursuing the aggressive enforcement of court orders for victims of domestic violence.

This was not the end of the road for Gonzales. She filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on December 27, 2005, alleging violations of her fundamental human rights. The IACHR is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS), created for the promotion and protection of human rights among its members. Among its activities, the IACHR receives, analyzes, and investigates petitions alleging human rights violations. After completing an investigation, the IACHR issues a report on its findings.

Although the United States has not ratified any Inter-American human rights treaties, human rights complaints can nonetheless be brought against the U.S. based on its signing of the Charter of the OAS and IACHR jurisprudence that holds that the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man to be a source of binding international obligations for the OAS’s member states.

The Commission found that the U.S. violated several rights protected by the American Declaration including: equal protection before the law, the right to life, the right to judicial protection, and the duty to provide special protection to certain vulnerable groups such as girl children. In its 2011 report on the Gonzales case, the IACHR specifically confirmed that domestic violence is a human rights violation.

Among its recommendations, the Commission included both remedies specifically for Gonzales and her family, as well as wider-ranging policy and law-reform related remedies that would help prevent future violations of human rights. It includes a recommendation that the U.S. undertake a serious, impartial, and exhaustive investigation into the deaths of the Gonzales’ children and into the systemic failures that took place relating to the enforcement of Gonzales’ protection order. The IACHR’s recommendations also included the adoption of policies and programs aimed at “restructuring the stereotypes of domestic violence victims” and promoting “the eradication of discriminatory socio-cultural patterns that impede women and children’s full protection from domestic violence acts.”

Domestic violence activists are cautiously hopeful about the IACHR’s report. Through its treatment of domestic violence as a human rights issue, it offers an alternative avenue to domestic violence survivors whose governments fail to adequately respond to systemic problems. The excitement about an alternative forum for these concerns at the international level is tempered by the fact that, to date, the United States has not implemented any substantive changes. Nonetheless, there remains optimism that continued and more widespread use of the IACHR and similar forums to address these kinds of problems may lead to more tangible improvements on the ground.