Since the detention of General Pinochet in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity, Chile's judges have sentenced more former officials of the military regime for human rights violations than judges of any other country in Latin America. This article argues that the prosecutorial turn reflects the judiciary's attempt to atone for its complicity with the dictatorship. The London arrest created pressure for prosecution of Pinochet‐era human rights violations; but it is the contest over the judiciary's legacy, as an important piece of postauthoritarian memory struggles, that explains why Chile's notoriously illiberal judiciary ceded to that pressure. By reconceptualizing judicial culture as contested, heterogeneous, and dynamic, this article opens the door to richer understandings of judicial politics, transitional justice, and the reception of international human rights.
Abstract∞
Colombia’s peace jurisdiction has formally accredited the territories of indigenous and Black communities as victims of the armed conflict. But what does it mean for a territory to be treated not as the stage on which a conflict unfolds, but as its victim? The concept of territory-as-victim seeks to give a legal expression to the notion that it is not just human lives that are upended by armed conflict, but also relations with non-humans, including ‘earth beings’ such as rivers and mountains, and the spiritual world. Further, it is a tool through which indigenous peoples and Black Colombians gain greater control over their land. Transitional justice scholars and practitioners are just beginning to consider what the push to recognize non-humans in law could mean for a field that has its origins in the human rights movement. This article contributes to the debate, showing how Colombia’s peace process is transforming territory from an object to a legal subject that suffers harm and is in need of repair.
The Dominican Republic (DR) filed its declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court or Court) on March 22, 1999, and since then has been the subject of four judgments and a series of provisional measures. On November 4, 2014, however, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic (Tribunal) declared unconstitutional the government’s declaration accepting jurisdiction, implying that the Dominican Republic is not now, and perhaps never has been, under the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.