ABSTRACT
Over the past 25 years, Latin America has confronted human rights violations in the context of highly constrained democratic transitions. These transitions had common features: the region had been a battlefield in the Cold War, a situation exacerbated by the success of the Cuban revolution and greater US intervention to stave off the spread of communism; Latin American military officers trained in the US and returned to their countries steeped in “National Security Doctrines” that privileged military stewardship above democratic politics; domestic leftist movements and revolutionary groups further polarized politics; and, economic uncertainty and weak political institutions paved the way for the rise of reactionary right-wing regimes. This chapter explores several important Latin American responses to legacies of human rights abuses that occurred in this context. For lack of space, I will look at only four cases – Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, and Peru – which have moved away from violent or otherwise authoritarian rule toward democracy, however imperfectly. Part I presents several normative goods that are necessary, I believe, to secure justice and reconciliation, and follows this with a discussion of institutions and strategies that may promote them (truth commissions, apologies, reparations schemes, trials, and others). Part II discusses several case studies in light of these norms.
