Abstract
This paper tries to find patterns that may allow understanding the way how the Inter-American Court of Human Rights defines the amounts it grants as compensations for non-pecuniary damages. In order to do so, this work analyzes three kinds of cases that allow comparisons: cases related to the death penalty, cases about freedom of expression, and cases in which the Court decided not to grant compensations for non-pecuniary damages. Within the conclusions of this paper, we find that the Inter-American Court uses objective criteria for determining the amount it grants as compensation for non-pecuniary damages. Thus, when defining the amount of compensation, the Court takes more into consideration the rights that the State violated than the individual victims’ sufferings.
Keywords:
Inter-American Court of Human Rights; compensations; non-pecuniary damages; death penalty; freedom of expression