Go to: ICTJ Activity | Background | Resources

ICTJ Activity

The ICTJ provided legal advice in 2002 to a local human rights organization, the Center for Legal and Social Studies, on resisting demands from members of the armed forces to hand over documentation, including information received from victims and family members of the disappeared. Based on a survey of applicable international law and state practice, the Center provided information on the rights and obligations of human rights organizations when faced with demands to disclose the contents of their files.

The ICTJ has closely followed the overturning of the amnesty laws and will provide support to prosecutors as they try perpetrators from the Dirty War era.

The Center has also included Argentina as one of the case studies in its ground-breaking research piece on reparations. The chapter, "Economic Reparations for Grave Human Rights Violations: The Argentinean Experience," presents the first overview of the Argentinean policy of economic reparations and reaffirms that the passage of time does not appease demands for justice.

Back to top

Background

Following a coup d'état in 1976 a succession of military juntas ruled Argentina until 1983. During that time the military orchestrated a campaign of terror and disappearances, with more than 10,000 people-by some estimates, up to 30,000-forcibly disappeared. After Argentina's defeat in its war with the United Kingdom over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, the military permitted a return to civilian rule in 1983 but granted itself immunity from prosecution and issued a decree ordering the destruction of all documents relating to military repression.

Created by presidential decree in December 1983 the National Commission on the Disappeared (CONADEP) presented its report on human rights violations during the dictatorship, Nunca Más (Never Again), nine months later. An abridged version has become one of Argentina's best-selling books. Amnesty laws were repealed and some prosecutions occurred immediately after the collapse of the military regime in 1983, but in subsequent years new laws were passed under pressure from the military to limit prosecutions. In 1990 President Carlos Saul Menem granted a pardon to the few people serving time in jail for crimes they had committed during the military regime.

These pardons have been the subject of intense scrutiny. On several occasions Argentine courts have ruled that victims and families have a right to demand state investigations of human rights crimes. In 2001 federal courts declared Argentina's laws barring prosecution of serious human rights crimes unconstitutional and in violation of international law. In June 2003 the amnesty law protecting military personnel from prosecution was ruled unconstitutional. This historic decision led to a vote in August 2003 by both the lower and upper houses of Argentina's Parliament to annul the amnesty law. The Supreme Court upheld the decision, paving the way for prosecutions.

Back to top

(Updated June 2008)