A/71/398 complying with due diligence in cases of femicide and in strengthening efforts aimed at ensuring that women enjoy a life free from violence and discrimination. The Model Protocol is based on an emblematic case of femicide brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, known as the “Cotton Field” case (see para. 69 below), the verdict and legal reasoning of which represented significant progress in efforts to combat impunity in relation to femicide in the region, not only as a precedent in case law, but also because it put pressure on States to uphold specific obligations with regard to investigation, punishment and reparation in such cases. 21 62. Several Latin American countries have already integrated or are working on integrating the Model Protocol into their legal systems and others have expressed an interest in doing so. The key problems that it is intended to address include the impunity relating to omissions and failures in investigations into cases of femicide, the contamination of the crime scene, the culture of discrimi nation on the part of judges and the high reliance on witness testimony. 63. Under the Model Protocol, femicide is understood as the murder of women because they are women, whether committed within the family, a domestic partnership or any other interpersonal relationship or by anyone in the community, or whether perpetrated or tolerated by the State or its agents. 22 Emphasis is placed on safeguarding the rights of suspects and on improving judicial capacity. Investigations are judged on both methods and res ults, while the State works towards a transformative reparations. By recognizing that the violence that affects women is determined not only by their sexual and gender status, but also by differences in terms of economic status, culture, age, race, languag e and religion/ cosmogony, it requires an intersectional analysis of the forms of violence that might have affected the femicide victim before, during or after the crime. 23 64. The Model Protocol identifies behaviour that causes death and other harm, with a motive based on gender, emphasizing the responsibility of the perpetrator and tracking signs and evidence of a history of violence in the perpetrator through, among other things, the health systems and police reports. It highlights the underlying and recurrent problem that “no one connects the dots” before women are killed. 65. Many States in Latin America and the Caribbean have specialized legislation that defines femicide as a specific crime. By 2015, 16 countries in the region had modified their laws to include a specific type of crime referring to the murder of women under the name of femicide or feminicide or as an aggravating circumstance of homicide. 24 The most recent countries to enact femicide laws have been Brazil, in March 2015, and Colombia, in July 2015. These two laws are considered to be model legislation, given that they involve all key line ministries, include prevention measures and, in the case of Brazil, arose from the adoption of the Model Protocol. While legislation on femicide is important, it is not an end in itself. It is necessary to emphasize, as the committee of experts on the follow -up mechanism to the __________________ 21 22 23 24 16-16456 See www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_205_ing.pdf. UN-Women, Secretary-General’s Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Latin American Model Protocol for the Investigation of Gender-related Killing of Women, p. 14. Ibid, p. 43. See http://oig.cepal.org/sites/default/files/noteforequality_17.pdf . 19/24