MIAMI.- The torture recorded in the formal indictment against Maduro regime in Venezuela are unprecedented among complaints for violations of human rights received at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court) in 40 years, according to the former vice president of that international body, Manuel Ventura.
During his intervention this Wednesday at the VI Seminar on Global Governance and Growth in Freedom 2026 dedicated to analyzing human rights in the New Global Order, Ventura made the shocking revelation when focusing on the case of Venezuela.
“After spending so many years in the Inter-American Court until 2015 and having witnessed human rights violations, witnessed horrible torture in many cases, the torture recorded there in the accusation of Maduro’s Venezuela is horrible,” stated the former magistrate. And he specified:
“They are worse than those registered in almost 40 years, in my case, in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” he said and recalled that after his departure from the Inter-American Court, together with other experts, he brought the accusation against Maduro before the ICC. He asked that the ICC be asked to explain why they have not resolved the accusation after more than a decade.
Ventura, also former Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, presented the presentation “The centrality of human rights since 1945 and its subsequent decline” in the first session of the virtual event dedicated to Human Rights in the New Global Order, Venezuelan Paradigm, held this June 24.
The conference was organized by the Geopolitical Observatory of Latin America (OGAL), associated with the IDEA Group, Miami Dade College, among other institutions.
Human rights in context
The former magistrate began his presentation with a historical overview of the evolution of human rights, passing through the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of the United Nations that established a new world order based on (2:02) universal respect for human rights that had been systematically violated during the armed conflict.
When addressing the emergence of the new political culture around human rights, he made reference to the creation of institutions for the international or national protection of human rights.
After mentioning the European Court of Human Rights, then the Inter-American Court and the more recently created African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, he highlighted the entry into force of the Rome Convention in 2000, and with it the creation of the ICC, which marked a milestone for declaring the responsibility of natural persons in violations.
Call to OAS member states
In his assessment, he drew attention to the fact that, despite the fact that human rights have been strengthened by being included in international rulings, the OAS member states “do not demand compliance with the rulings or do not abide by them if they fall on one of those countries.
“In the case of Venezuela, when I retired from the Court in 2015, there were around 11 or 12 sentences against the Venezuelan State that it has not complied with. Some are on very sensitive issues such as freedom of expression, and those cases must have multiplied in recent years,” he stated.
He resented that the number of sentences and the budget is lower in the Inter-American Court compared to other international human rights courts.
He argued that the greatest proof of the weakening of human rights is the number of armed conflicts since 1945 in the world, but the greatest is the judicial strengthening of human rights through judicial rulings.
“It is a slow but firm and irreversible path” and called for a greater strengthening of rights with the ratification of the American Convention by the US, Canada, Cuba and several Caribbean states.
