La responsabilidad del Estado ante la violencia intrafamiliar. Dos visiones que se contraponen

The purpose of this article is to study the responsibility of the State in situations of domestic violence that could have been avoided with prompt and effective intervention by the authorities. For this purpose, two dissimilar experiences were reviewed, based on primary and secondary sources, as is the case of the United States, Spain and Colombia. In the United States, state responsibility for situations of domestic violence is exceptional and difficult to enforce, since, based on the due process clause (fourteenth amendment to the Constitution), the Supreme Court of Justice has considered that the State does not have the obligation to protect the life, liberty or property of citizens due to conduct by private individuals. Unlike the United States, Spain and Colombia have recognized the responsibility of the State in situations of domestic violence, a position that has found support in national laws and important international instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).