Right and duty of memory as a new right

Abstract

The article analyzes the evolution of the duty of memory within the Inter-American human rights system and its transformation into a legal requirement derived from the right to the truth. Although the American Convention on Human Rights does not expressly recognize a “right to memory,” the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, through an evolutive interpretation of Articles 1(1), 8, 25, and 13, has established that the preservation of collective memory is indispensable for the full exercise of human rights. Accordingly, the right to the truth extends beyond individual victims to encompass society as a whole, imposing on States obligations to preserve, disseminate, and teach the past.

The jurisprudential consolidation of this duty has occurred progressively through three key decisions: Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras (1988), which affirmed society’s right to know the truth; Gomes Lund v. Brazil (2010), which recognized the dissemination of truth as a form of collective reparation and a guarantee of non-repetition; and Rodríguez Vera v. Colombia (2014), which incorporated commemoration and the teaching of events as symbolic reparation and established the preservation of historical memory as an international obligation. In this way, the duty of memory ceases to be a moral mandate and becomes an emerging and binding conventional right.

This right entails positive State obligations, such as access to archives, protection against denialism, and the incorporation of memory into public policies. In Colombia, Inter-American jurisprudence has had a decisive influence on the institutionalization of memory policies, despite structural and cultural resistance. Finally, Inter-American bodies and the United Nations agree that memory today constitutes an international legal obligation and an essential pillar of contemporary democracies.