From Bolivia through Rutgers Law School in New Jersey and all the way to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica, the life story of Brisa De Angulo is a lesson in determination.

After being sexually assaulted by a family member as a teenager in her native Bolivia in the early 2000s, De Angulo became one of the first adolescent women in the country's history to pursue rape charges. And when she ran into relentless discrimination in the Bolivian legal system, she became her own advocate, suing the Bolivian government in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a case that began humbly at Rutgers Law School.

That case made history in 2023 when the court ruled that Bolivia violated De Angulo's rights and revictimized her through its handling of the criminal case against her attacker. As the first case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights dealing with the human rights of an adolescent incest victim, it also helped set standards for Bolivia and other countries in how to handle such matters, according to De Angulo.

Now, in the wake of that decision, she is having her life set to film through the documentary "Brisa," which is slated for release early this year was and shortlisted for 2024's Documentary Awards from the International Documentary Association.

But rather than dwelling on her successes, De Angulo is looking outward, as she has for much of her life and career, to see who else her story can help.

"My hope is that it can bring awareness to the subject of incestual sexual violence, and also to bring hope to those who are trapped in these places, to know that healing is possible and that it is possible to get out," she told Law360 in a recent interview.

De Angulo's legal saga dates back to 2001 and 2002 when, at the age of 15, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a 26-year-old cousin who had come to live with her family in Bolivia. De Angulo's parents had moved the family from the U.S. to an impoverished area of Bolivia to launch a health clinic when De Angulo was 2 years old.

De Angulo and her family were determined to seek justice through the courts, but as one of the first adolescent women to ever attempt to bring a criminal case for rape in Bolivian history, she said she encountered a justice system heavily weighted against her. The prosecutor who De Angulo approached was not interested in pursuing it, but gave her permission to effectively handle her own case through a private attorney.

"I had to face police and prosecutors and judges who thought that I was being absolutely ridiculous for even trying to bring a rape [case], and not being able to find lawyers who wanted to represent me, because representing me would be tainting them with a rape victim," De Angulo said.

"What I heard constantly," she added, "was, 'You are a girl, what else do you expect? Why are you making a problem out of this?'"

As the criminal process played out, De Angulo received death threats over the phone and through the mail, her family's house was pelted with stones and set on fire twice, and people attempted to kidnap her and hit her with their car.

After two trials and a third that was scheduled but never fully carried out, De Angulo's attacker remains at large, having fled to Colombia. Bolivia has requested extradition, which Colombia has denied, and the case is before the highest federal court in Colombia.

"It's been 22 years, and my case is still open and I'm still awaiting my trial," De Angulo said. "I hope that it can bring the reality of how difficult it is for survivors to get justice."

In the wake of her own tragedy, De Angulo in 2004 founded the first organization dedicated to helping victims of child sexual violence in Bolivia, operating in an expanded capacity today as A Breeze of Hope. The group offers legal advice and counseling for victims of sexual violence, and it advocates internationally for stronger protections against childhood sexual violence.

De Angulo attended college in the U.S. and met her future husband and co-leader of A Breeze of Hope, Parker Palmer, along the way, but she didn't give up looking for a way to use her own story to make a larger difference. She approached American organizations about pursuing a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but when none were interested, she and Palmer decided to get law degrees from Rutgers Law School in Camden to become their own advocates.

The Intern-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous legal institution that hears disputes connected to the American Convention of Human Rights, a regional human rights treaty adopted by 25 countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. In order for individuals like De Angulo to be heard by the court, they must present their case to a separate body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

"I started thinking about, what can I do with my own case, with my own story, to create precedent and to make sure that this never happens to any other child?" De Angulo said.

At Rutgers, she and Palmer met professor Beth Stephens, a former human rights litigator with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, who provided crucial mentorship.

Stephens said that, through a remarkable coincidence, she happened to be traveling in Bolivia at the exact time De Angulo and Palmer reached out to her for advice about De Angulo's case. Stephens agreed to meet with a senior attorney at De Angulo's organization and heard her story. As the meeting unfolded, Stephens said she remembered reaching a sudden realization: that decisions from the Inter-American Human Rights Court would have to be accepted as binding law in Bolivia.

"I asked one question: 'Has Bolivia agreed to accept the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Human Rights Court?' And [the senior attorney] said yes. And we both smiled at each other," Stephens told Law360.

The case became the subject of a course that Stephens taught in the fall of 2010 in which De Angulo, Palmer and other students worked on preparing De Angulo's initial filing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the first step in litigating before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. They submitted the filing in early 2012 and were given the rare opportunity to have a hearing before the commission.

The approach De Angulo and her team took in the case was "unorthodox," she said, as she sought changes to legal standards as opposed to monetary compensation.

In the end, the court found that the government of Bolivia became a "second aggressor" through the way it handled De Angulo's case, including by making her take multiple gynecological exams and recount events in several interviews, constituting "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment," according to an official summary of the decision.

"I feel that the court actually heard me, and the judges heard me, and that they set the standards that I was looking for for the entire region," De Angulo said.

Palmer said the more than 13-year journey was hard to envision. One of the keys to eventually succeeding was how strongly he, Stephens and De Angulo believed that, with even the slightest opening, the case could succeed.

"I remember when we were in Rutgers Law School in 2010, and I truly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into," he said. "I think that the depth of that conviction at the beginning is something that really helps sustain us throughout the process."

Palmer also praised Stephens' devotion to De Angulo and how she put her first throughout the process, which came to include attorneys from the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP and the international women's rights organization Equality Now.

"It was the undeniable sense that it has always been so much more than just a case for Beth; it was never just a case," Palmer said. "It was the unfolding of tragedy and suffering and a human being's life and a need to respond to that suffering. It was never just another case."

"It's been thrilling — very satisfying, very moving," Stephens said of seeing De Angulo and Palmer's success.

The idea for the documentary came about after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling, as a mutual friend put De Angulo and Palmer in touch with Nick Nanton, a documentary filmmaker who has done work with nongovernmental organizations before.

Nanton said part of what attracted him to the story was De Angulo's front-and-center role in it.

"She wasn't looking for someone to come and rescue her," he said. "She was saying, 'No one knew how to rescue me. How do I go back and rescue others?'"

Nanton and his film crew met with De Angulo and Palmer in the U.S. first, and later traveled to Bolivia to work on the film. He said he approached the project as a "student," seeking to gain trust and do justice to De Angulo's story through the interviews he did with sources.

"If they know you're actually there to help them, not for other purposes, they open up and they give you access to everything that they're comfortable with that you would need to help them share that story," Nanton said.

He hopes that the documentary will speak most deeply to other survivors of sexual assault.

"I want them to see that there's hope on the other side of healing, there's advocacy if you want; you don't have to let that event or those events in your life disempower you," Nanton said.

Today, running A Breeze of Hope is at the center of De Angulo's work.

According to the organization's website, it has provided free legal assistance to more than 2,300 girls through specialized legal help to ensure that due process is followed in prosecuting their attackers. The organization says it has helped bring more than 900 cases to trial and contributed to convictions in 95% of cases.

The group is also working to implement the legal standards put in place by the Inter-American Court of Human Right's decision on De Angulo's case. De Angulo said A Breeze of Hope is planning an event gathering first ladies from other countries under the court's jurisdiction, which will also have to abide by the precedential decision. When interviewed by Law360 last month, she said she had recently returned from a trip to Colombia, where representatives from more than 90 countries had met to discuss strategies to eliminate violence against children.

Even though her personal case is ongoing and her life has become the subject of a movie, in conversation with Law360, De Angulo seemed less interested in her own story than the stories of the people she works with through A Breeze of Hope.

The chance to help others get the justice she should have gotten originally is her main goal, she said.

"Seeing their pain and their struggle — it stopped being about me way, way long ago," De Angulo said.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.

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