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Mechanisms complementing prosecution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2010

Laura Olson
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International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 84 , Issue 845: Impunité/Impunity , March 2002 , pp. 173 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2002

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References

1 Alfonsin, Raoul, “‘Never again’ in Argentina”, journal of Democracy, Vol. 4, January 1993, p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Some examples include: grave breaches of international humanitarian law (Arts 50/51/130/147 respectively of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Arts 11 and 85 of Additional Protocol I of 1977) and violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Forced Disappearance of Persons, the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, and for the crimes articulated in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

3 Orentlicher, Diane F., “Settling accounts: The duty to prosecute human rights violations of a prior regime”, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 100, 1991, p. 2542CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Malamud-Goti, Jaime E., “Transitional governments in the breach: Why punish State criminals?”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 12, 1990, p. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Three rights are articulated — the victims' right to know, the victims' right to justice and the victims' right to reparations — in the Final Report on “The administration of justice and the human rights of detainees: Question of the impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations (civil and political)”, prepared by Mr Joinet pursuant to Sub-Commission decision 1996/119, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/20, 26 June 1997 [hereinafter joinet Report].

5 In Argentina, for example, trials during the mid-1980s of former junta members received extensive media coverage, providing testimony from hundreds of victims and witnesses; Hayner, Priscilla B., Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity, Routledge, London, 2001, p. 100Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 101, citing interview with Paul van Zyl in Johannesburg, South Africa (November 1997).

7 Hayner, Priscilla B., “Fifteen truth commissions — 1974 to 1994: A comparative study”, in Kritz, Neil J. (ed.), Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Vol. 1, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, 1995, p. 225, p. 229Google Scholar [hereinafter Transitional Justice]; see also Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 230.

8 Truth commissions in chronological order, with the dates they operated: Uganda (1974), Bolivia (1982–1984), Argentina (1983–1984), Uruguay (1985), Zimbabwe (1985), Uganda (1986–1995), Nepal (1990–1991), Chile (1990–1991), Chad (1991–1992), South Africa (ANC) (1992), Germany (1992–1994), El Salvador (1992–1993), South Africa (ANC) (1993), Sri Lanka (1994–1997), Haiti (1995–1996), Burundi (1995–1996), South Africa (1995–2000), Ecuador (1996–1997), Guatetice]; mala (1997–1999), Nigeria (1999–2000), and Sierra Leone (2000–2001). See Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), Appendix 1, Chart 1, pp. 291–297. Truth commissions in Peru and East Timor are currently underway.

9 Ibid., p. 14.

10 ibid., pp. 145–146.

11 In Chile and in Argentina reparation programmes relied on their truth commissions' records. Ibid., p. 172.

12 Margaret Popkin and Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “Truth as justice: Investigatory commissions in Latin America”, in Transitional justice, op. cit. (note 7), p. 262.

13 Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 16.

14 Ibid., p. 107; Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 254–255; Juan E. Méndez, “Accountability for past abuses”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 19,1997, p. 265.

15 Méndez, op. cit. (note 14), p. 265; Zalaquett, José, in Boraine, Alex et al. (eds), Dealing with the Past: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, 1994, p. 51Google Scholar.

16 Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), p. 257; see also Méndez, op. cit. (note 14), p. 265.

17 Rebels killed one, and the other was apparently killed by government death squads to cover up evidence. Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), p. 257.

18 From Madness to Hope: Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, p. 25, quoted in Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 117.

19 Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 110–111. Five days after the Commission's report was released, a broad amnesty law was passed shielding all named. Ibid., p. 40.

20 The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the only commission authorized to offer individualized amnesty.

21 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 (1995) (South Africa), Section 30, quoted in Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 1, 1999, chap. 7, para. 21, p. 179.

22 Case No. 3334/96, Truth and Reconciliation Commission v. Du Preez and Another, 1996 (3) SA 997; Case No. 4443/96 (Appellate Division) — cited in Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 1,1999, chap. 7, sec. 21–76, pp. 179–190.

23 Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 125.

24 Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), p. 259. For a description of an ideal truth commission, see comments by Jamal Benomar, Director of the Human Rights Program at the Carter Center of Emory University quoted in Mary Albon, Conference Rapporteur, “Truth and justice: The delicate balance — documentation of prior regimes and individual rights”, in Transitional Justice, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 290–291.

25 Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), p. 251.

26 Ibid., p. 254. The Haiti Truth Commission was a failure in this regard because it published a report six months after the mandate of the Truth Commission ended and did not widely distribute it. Méndez, op. cit. (note 14), p. 269.

27 Hayner, op. cit. (note 7), p. 249.

28 Herman Schwartz, “Lustration in Eastern Europe”, in Transitional Justice, op. cit. (note 7), p. 461, No. 1. Lustration is also referred to as purges. The term comes from the Latin lustratio, which means purifying by sacrifice; see De Brito, Alexandra Barahona, Gonzaléz-Enríquez, Carmen and Aguilar, Paloma (eds), The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, p. 6Google Scholar [hereinafter The Politics of Memory].

29 Schwartz, op. cit. (note 28), p. 461.

30 Huyse, Luc, “Justice after transition: On the choices successor elites make in dealing with the past”, Law & Social Inquiry, Vol. 20, 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cited in Transitional Justice, op. cit. (note 7), p. 337. In Belgium, France and the Netherlands after World War II, lustration was accompanied by criminal conviction. Ibid.

31 The Politics of Memory, op. cit. (note 28), p. 6; Schwartz, op. cit. (note 28), p. 463.

32 The Politics of Memory, op. cit. (note 28), p. 6.

33 Ibid., p. 219. In Slovakia, the lustration law ceased to be in force when the Federation broke up on 1 January 1993. It was never formerly repealed, but the necessary adminis- trative mechanisms to enforce it were never activated; Ibid., p. 228.

34 Ibid., p. 6.

35 Ibid., p. 219.

36 Ibid., p. 220.

37 Ibid., p. 221.

38 Huyse, op. cit. (note 30), p. 346.

39 The Politics of Memory, op. cit. (note 28), p. 6.

40 Schwartz, op. cit. (note 28), p. 464. The former Czechoslovakia provides one example. See The Politics of Memory, op. cit. (note 28), p. 225.

41 Schwartz, op. cit. (note 28), p. 466; see generally, Rzeplinski, Andrzej, “A lesser evil?”, East European Constitutional Review, Vol. 1, 1992, pp. 33–35Google Scholar, reprinted in Transitional Justice, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 484–487.

42 “All of us are responsible, each to a different degree, for keeping the totatitarian machine running. None of us is merely a victim of it, because all of us helped to concerncreate it together”: Vaclav Havel, “New Year's Address” (1 January 1990), quoted in Nagorski, Andrew, The Birth of Freedom, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1993, p. 89Google Scholar; Schwartz, op. cit. (note 28), p. 461.

43 Huyse, op. cit. (note 30), p. 348.

44 Joinet Report, op. cit. (note 4).

45 Regional and international human rights treaties, confirmed in decisions by international courts. See “United Nations Commission on Human Rights: Study concerncreate ingthe right to restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for victims of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms: Final Report”, Theo van Boven, Special Rapporteur, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993, 8 July 1993; see also Joinet Report, op. cit. (note 4).

46 “Study concerning the right to restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for victims of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities”, Theo van Boven, Special Rapporteur, Preliminary Report, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/10, 26 July 1990, paras 25–29.

47 Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 180.

48 Ibid., pp. 172–173.

49 Ibid., p. 178.

50 Ibid., p. 177.

51 Ibid.

52 Alcinda Honwana, “Sealing the Past, Facing the Future: Trauma Healing in Rural Mozambique”, Accord — An International Review of Peace Initiatives, 1998, <http://www.-c-r.org/accord/acc_moz/honwana.htm>.

53 José Luís Cabaço, the former Frelimo government official, quoted in Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 191.

54 Honwana, op. cit. (note 52), p. 2; Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 193–195.

55 Honwana, op. cit. (note 52), p. 5.

56 Hayner, op. cit. (note 5), p. 192, interview with Raul Domingos, former senior Renamo leader, in Mozambique.

57 On 12 October 2000, the National Assembly of Transition voted the law instituting the Gacaca. Gacaca is a Kinyarwanda term for the grass on which traditional village assemblies used to be held. Herve Bar, ”Rwanda-Rwandans elect judges for grass-roots courts for genocide hearings”, AFP via NewsEDGE, 4 October 2001.

58 “Rwanda: Genocide surivors worried about people's courts”, Agence France-Presse via NewsEDGE, 10 March 2001. Other estimates include 150 years: Abigail, Zoppetti, ”Crime de guerre. Au Rwanda, retour à la justice coutumière de les ‘gacaca’”, Le Temps, 19 July 2001; and 200 years: Gabiro, Gabriel and Crawford, Julia, “Les Rwandais expriment des sentiments partagés sur les ‘gacaca’”, Arusha International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda News, Agence de Presse Hirondelle, 4 May 2001Google Scholar.

59 Bar, op. cit. (note 57).

60 Ntampaka, Charles, “Le gacaca rwandais, une justice répressive participative”, Actualité du droit International Humanitaire, Les Dossiers de la Revue de Droit Pénal et de Criminologie, Vol. 6, la Charte, Brussels, 2001, p. 211, p. 213.Google Scholar

61 Joinet Report, op. cit. (note 4).