Accolades

 

2006   Awarded the Inge Genefke International Award for “outstanding work in the global fight against torture”.

 

2007   Co-recipient of the 2007 Gruber Justice Prize, which honors individuals who have advanced the cause of justice as delivered through the legal system, for “pionnering work in the fight against the impunity of crimes against humanity in the world.”  Shared with Justice Carmen Argibay (Supreme Court of Argentina) and Judge Carlos Cerda (Superior Court of Chile).    

 

Among those awarded the Justice Prize in the past, have been, Thomas Buergenthal (former American Judge of the ICJ and of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights), Pius Langa (former Chief Justice of South Africa), Michael Kirby (former Justice of the High Court of Australia), John Dugard (former member of the International Law Commission), Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella (from the Supreme Court in Canada).

 

Quotes:

 

"Each prize recipient has shown great resolve in fighting for democratic principles in the face of tyrannical regimes, often at great risk to personal security. Collectively, they are a model for individual action aimed at achieving human equality and the resistance of tyranny around the world." (Justice Sandra Day O’Connor from the USA Supreme Court, one of the members of the selection panel choosing the Gruber Justice Prize 2007)

 

"In every age and in every country, heroes appear. Often they are reluctant heroes who choose to take a principled stand in difficult times. I’m confident that the efforts of this year’s Justice Prize recipients – three courageous persons working within the justice systems of Latin America – will inspire people from all parts of the world to do the right thing at the right time."  (Human rights advocate Martin Lee, Esq., a member of the Gruber Justice selection committee).

 

 

“Mónica Feria has shown a seldom persistency in her effort to help victims of human rights abuses and above all victims of torture. For the entire international community she has proven that the continuous struggle against injustice has rendered reparation to those most in need. She is thereby an example for all of us to follow and an outstanding representative of the INGE GENEFKE AWARD 2006.” (Professor Bent Sørensen, MD, DMSc, former member of the UN Committee against Torture and the CPT , the Committee of the European Council for Preventing Torture)    

 

 

"In the proceedings of the present case (written and oral phases), there is a detail in the arguments presented before the Court that cannot go unnoticed. With the best of the intentions – to seek justice, - the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights made emphasis of the lack of proportionality in the use of force by the state agents in the incursion of the Prison of Castro Castro, while the representation of the victims and their next of kin highlighted as the central matter the illegality of the original act (aggravated by the intent). 

[…] Within the context of the present case of the Prison of Castro Castro, the representation of the victims and their next of kin, through their common intervener (Mrs. Mónica Feria Tinta), […], captured, […] the facts (cf. supra), the legal grounds applicable, with greater precision and success than the Commission, […]."  (Judge A.A. Cancado Trindade, Case of the Prison of Castro Castro, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Concurring Opinion, Judgment, 2006)

 

 

"It has always seemed surprising, if not enigmatic, to me that up to today, more than a decade as of the entry into force of the Convention of Belém do Pará, the Inter-American Commission has never, up to this date, sought the hermeneutics of this Court on said Convention, as permitted expressly by the latter (Articles 11-12). In the present case of the Castro Castro Prison, acts of extreme violence and cruelty have been committed against the inmates – men and women, - constant in the case file, which, however, require an analysis of gender in reason of the nature of certain breaches of rights suffered especially by the women. […]

In the legal proceedings (in both the written and oral stages) before this Court, it was the representation of the victims and their next of kin, and not the Commission, who insisted on relating the protection norms of the Convention of Belém do Pará  (specifically its Articles 4 and 7) with the violations to the American Convention on Human Rights. This exercise comes to attend the necessary gender analysis in the present case. ((Judge A.A. Cancado Trindade, Case of the Prison of Castro Castro, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Concurring Opinion, Judgment, 2006)