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Prologue to truth: Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappeared and the authority of international law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2021
Abstract
Argentina’s 1980s transition to democracy is globally admired for pioneering a state-led process addressing the 1976–1983 dictatorship’s state-violence. The role of international law in the transition is well documented, especially through human rights and crimes against humanity. Yet, the extent to which Argentina’s transition was intertwined with international law and subject to its jurisdictional force deserves greater attention. This article analyses how the Argentinian truth commission (TC) accounts for the dictatorship’s state-violence, and how international law is implicated in the making of this account. It argues that the TC’s account draws on the authority of international law to establish the unlawfulness of the dictatorship’s state-violence. In turn, the TC subjects the meaning and interpretation of the dictatorship’s state-violence to a Eurocentric/Anglo-American lawfulness embedded in, and mobilized by, international law in the late-Cold War. To examine this, the article re-reads the Prologue to the TC’s Report as a literary text that does international legal work, harnessing the authority of international law in a way that has enabled the TC to deploy an authoritative, internationally acceptable, account of the unlawfulness of the dictatorship’s state-violence. This reading is based on original archival research, on scholarship in the fields of ‘law and literature’ and the history and theory of international law.
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References
1 C. S. Nino, Radical Evil on Trial (1996), 67–104; M. Zunino, Justice Framed: A Genealogy of Transitional Justice (2019), 62–7.
2 See generally P. Arthur, ‘How “Transitions” Reshaped Human Rights: A Conceptual History of Transitional Justice’, (2009) 31 Human Rights Quarterly 137; A. Brysk, The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina: Protest, Change, and Democratization (1994); R. Figari Layus, The Reparative Effects of Human Rights Trials: Lessons from Argentina (2017).
3 CONADEP, Nunca Más: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared; with an Introduction by Ronald Dworkin (1986).
4 Decreto 187/83, CONADEP (1983).
5 CONADEP, supra note 3.
6 CONADEP, Nunca Más: Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (1985; 2011). The Report’s list and technical information about each desaparecido was later updated and published, see Eudeba-CONADEP, Anexo del Nunca Más (2 Tomos) (2010).
7 See, for example, P. B. Hayner, ‘Fifteen Truth Commissions—1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study’, (1994) 16 Human Rights Quarterly 597, at 614; N. J. Kritz, Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes (1995); Nino, supra note 1, at 146; R. G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (2000); K. Sikkink and C. Walling Booth, ‘Argentina’s Contribution to Global Trends in Transitional Justice’, in N. Roht-Arriaza and J. Mariezcurrena (eds.), Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice (2006); E. Crenzel, ‘Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons: Contributions to Transitional Justice’, (2008) 2 IJTJ 173; Arthur, supra note 2; K. Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics (2011); L. Balardini, ‘Argentina. Regional Protagonist of Transitional Justice’, in C. Collins, J. Garcia-Godos and E. Skaar (eds.), Transitional Justice in Latin America: The Uneven Road from Impunity Towards Accountability (2016); Zunino, supra note 1, at 72.
8 According to Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo there were at least 30,000 desaparecidos. See ‘Historia’, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, available at www.abuelas.org.ar/abuelas/historia-9.
9 O. Galak, ‘Controversia por el prólogo agregado al informe “Nunca más”’, La Nación, 19 May 2006, available at www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/controversia-por-el-prologo-agregado-al-informe-nunca-mas-nid807208.
10 See Y. Dezalay and B. G. Garth, The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States (2002). On the centrality of the European colonial project in the craft of international law see A. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2005).
11 Decreto187/83, supra note 4.
12 For an overview of the field see M. Aristodemou, Law and Literature: Journeys from Here to Eternity (2000); J. Stone Peters, ‘Law, Literature, and the Vanishing Real: On the Future of an Interdisciplinary Illusion’, (2005) 120 PMLA 442; G. Olson, ‘De-Americanizing Law and Literature Narratives: Opening Up the Story’, (2010) 22 Law and Literature 338; D. Manderson, Kangaroo Courts and the Rule of Law: The Legacy of Modernism (2012), 9–20. See Manderson’s critique of using literature to redeem law, ibid., at 12–15. See generally P. Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love: Literature and Other Minor Jurisprudences (1996); A. Gearey, Law and Aesthetics (2001); K. Birrell, Indigeneity: Before and Beyond the Law (2016); M. Wan, Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction (2017).
13 J. R. Slaughter, Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (2007), 4. For a recent contribution see C. Gevers, ‘International Law, Literature and Worldmaking’, in S. Chalmers and S. Pahuja (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities (2021), 191. Other scholars have also examined how literature and modern law, including international law, co-operate through truth commissions to create and deploy legal subjectivities; see, e.g., M. Sanders, Ambiguities of Witnessing: Law and Literature in the Time of a Truth Commission (2007); C. Clarkson, Drawing the Line: Toward an Aesthetics of Transitional Justice (2013). On the role of modern law, international law, and narratives in truth commissions see A. Orford, ‘Commissioning the Truth’, (2006) 15 CJGL 851; C. Moon, ‘Narrating Political Reconciliation: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa’, (2006) 15 Social and Legal Studies 257; A. Sitze, The Impossible Machine: A Genealogy of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2013); V. Vázquez Guevara, ‘Crafting the Lawful Truth: Chile’s 1990 Truth Commission, International Human Rights and the Museum of Memory’, (2019) 7 London Review of International Law 253; E. Cusato, ‘International law, the Paradox of Plenty and the Making of Resource-Driven Conflict’, (2020) 33 LJIL 649.
14 J. R. Slaughter, ‘Enabling Fictions and Novel Subjects: The “Bildungsroman” and International Human Rights Law’, (2006) 121 PMLA 1405, at 1407.
15 Ibid., at 1408.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., at 1407.
18 On legal categories as technologies of jurisdiction see S. Dorsett and S. McVeigh, Jurisdiction (2012), 71–6.
19 On crafting international law’s promise and its deployment in Latin America during the late-Cold War see Dezalay and Garth, supra note 10, at 61–72, 127–40.
20 There is a debate as to whether Latin America is ‘Western/Occidental’. This is a very complex debate, and beyond the scope of this article. Yet, it is important to highlight that categorizing Latin America as ‘Western/Occidental’ is underpinned by (to name a few): the racism of the Spanish colonial project in the Americas; the ongoing denial and extermination of the indigenous peoples and their laws; binary worldviews (e.g., civilized/savage; modern/traditional; developed/backward). For a critique of a Western/Occidental identity in Argentina see I. Aguiló, The Darkening Nation: Race, Neoliberalism and Crisis in Argentina (2018). On identity, race and international law in Colombia (also helpful to consider other Latin America countries) see L. Eslava, ‘Trigueño International Law: On (Most of the World) being (Always, Somehow) Out of Place’, in L. Chua and M. Massoud (eds.), Out of Place: Power, Person and Difference in Socio-Legal Research (forthcoming).
21 Minute No. 20-27, at 80–109; Minute No. 37, at 151–2, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–84); E. A. Crenzel, The Memory of the Argentina Disappearances: The Political History of Nunca Más (2012), 32–75.
22 Ibid.
23 Decreto 187/83, supra note 4.
24 D. Galante, El Juicio a las Juntas: Discursos entre Política y Justicia en la Transición Argentina (2019), 33; Nino, supra note 1, at 62–3, 73; J. Malamud-Goti, Game Without End: State Terror and the Politics of Justice (1996), 4; Crenzel, supra note 21, at 38–9.
25 ‘Elecciones 1983’, Dirección Nacional Electoral, Ministerio del Interior, Gobierno de la Argentina (1983).
26 H. Verbitsky, Malvinas: La Última Batalla de la Tercera Guerra Mundial (2002).
27 The Junta declared the desaparecidos dead in the Documento Final, with which it aimed to stop public pressure. Cadena Nacional: Documento Final de la Junta Militar (1983), produced by Archivo Histórico RTA, available at www.archivorta.com.ar/asset/cadena-nacional-documento-final-de-la-junta-militar. Documento Final de la Junta Militar sobre la Guerra contra la Subversión y el Terrorismo, Junta Militar (1983), at 36–60, available at www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/actas_tomo6.pdf.
28 Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, El Papel del Sistema de Justicia frente a las Violaciones Masivas de Derechos Humanos: Problemáticas Actuales (2008), 20. On the international influence of Argentina’s desaparecidos judicial process see A. E. Dulitzky, ‘Argentina, Desapariciones Forzadas y el Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos: A propósito del Caso Julien-Grisonas’, (2020) Revista de Pensamiento Penal.
29 Amnesty International, Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Argentina, 6–15 November 1976 (1977); Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of the American States, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Argentina (1980); M. Franco, ‘El “Documento Final” y las demandas en torno a los desaparecidos en la última etapa de la dictadura militar argentina’, (2018) 11 Antítesis 244, at 245.
30 R. Alfonsín, ‘No es Palabra Final: Respuesta del candidato Alfonsín al “Documento Final”’ (1983).
31 R. Alfonsín, Memoria Política: Transición a la Democracia y Derechos Humanos; con prólogo de Juan Carlos Portantiero (2009), 37. See also Ley 22.924, Ley de Pacificación Nacional (1983).
32 Ibid.; E. Mignone, Derechos Humanos y Sociedad: El Caso Argentino (1991), 156–7.
33 Nino, supra note 1, at 72; Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 39; Mignone, supra note 32, at 158; Crenzel, supra note 21, at 37.
34 Alfonsín, ibid., at 39.
35 Crenzel, supra note 21, at 37–8 (‘ciudadanos’). Raúl Alfonsín, ‘Prólogo’, in C. S. Nino (ed.), Juicio al Mal Absoluto: ¿Hasta Dónde Debe Llegar la Justicia Retroactiva en Casos de Violaciones Masivas de los Derechos Humanos? (1996), 22.
36 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 40 (‘vida pública’); (‘compromiso con la defensa de la democracia y los derechos humanos’).
37 Crenzel, supra note 21, at 37–8, n. 18. On the similarities between TCs and commissions of inquiry see J. Balint, J. Evans, and N. McMillan, ‘Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts: Commissions of Inquiry in Historical Perspective’, (2016) 42 Australian Feminist Law Journal 75.
38 Decreto 187/83, supra note 4.
39 Ibid., Art. 1 (‘esclarecer los hechos relacionados con la desaparición de personas ocurridos en el país’).
40 Ibid., (‘la cuestión’); (‘trasciende a los poderes públicos’).
41 Ibid., (‘los hechos’); (‘gravísimas violaciones a los derechos humanos’).
42 Ibid., (‘el interés legítimo’); (‘sociedad civil’); (‘comunidad internacional’).
43 Ibid., (‘informe’); (‘que ofrezca una explicación detallada de los hechos investigados, que sirva para ilustrar a la opinión pública nacional e internacional’); (‘los trágicos episodios en los que desaparecieron miles de personas’).
44 Entrega del Informe de la CONADEP (1984), produced by Archivo Histórico RTA, available at www.archivorta.com.ar/asset/entrega-del-informe-de-la-conadep-20-09-1984/.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., (‘el país … necesita saber la verdad acerca de lo que pasó porque sobre la base de la mentira o de la oscuridad no podemos construir la unión nacional’) (emphasis added).
48 Decreto 187/83, supra note 4, (‘para ilustrar’).
49 See Minute No. 27, supra note 21, at 108; Minute No. 28, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 109; Minute No. 30, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 115–116; Minute No. 37, supra note 21, at 154; Minute No. 39, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 158.
50 Ibid.
51 Drafting Commission members: Graciela Fernández Mejide (teacher; CONADEP-Secretary of Depositions), Alberto Mansur (lawyer; CONADEP-Secretary of Legal Affairs), Ernesto Sábato (writer; CONADEP-president), Eduardo Rabossi (analytic legal philosopher) and Carlos Gattinoni (Protestant-Methodist pastor). Minute No. 27, supra note 21, at 108.
52 Ibid., (‘periodista de confianza’). The name of the journalist is only recorded as ‘Gazola’ in Minute No. 37, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP.
53 In the final writing stage, they are called ‘essays’ (Minute No. 39, at 158). At the beginning they are called ‘ideas’ or ‘themes’ (Minute No. 24, at 99–100), and later ‘ideas in writing’ (Minute No. 30, at 116). See Minute No. 39, supra note 49; Minute No. 24, supra note 21; Minute No. 30, supra note 49.
54 Minute No. 30, ibid., at 116.
55 Minute No. 36, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 149 (‘un proyecto de prólogo’). Crenzel, supra note 21, at 67.
56 Minute No. 30, supra note 49, at 116 (‘contendría los puntos esenciales del Informe’).
57 E. Dearnley, Translators and their Prologues in Medieval England (2016), 2.
58 On the varying role of a prologue see A. Porqueras Mayo, El Prólogo como Género Literario: Su Estudio en el Siglo de Oro Español (1957).
59 Ibid., at 100 (‘su carácter introductorio a algo’) (emphasis in original).
60 Dearnley, supra note 57, at 2.
61 G. Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (1997), at 224.
62 Ibid., at 212.
63 See Slaughter, supra note 14; S. Chalmers, ‘The Beginning of Human Rights: The Ritual of the Preamble to Law’, (2018) 9 Humanity 107.
64 Slaughter, ibid., at 1419.
65 W. Voermans, M. Stremler and P. Cliteur, Constitutional Preambles: A Comparative Analysis (2017), 9.
66 Ibid., at 6.
67 Chalmers, supra note 63, at 109.
68 See M. T. Fögen, ‘The Legislator’s Monologue: Notes on the History of Preambles’, (1995) 70 Chicago-Kent Law Review 1593; Chalmers, ibid.; M. M. Mbengue, ‘Preamble’, in R. Wolfrum (ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (2006).
69 Voermans et al., supra note 65, at 90.
70 Mbengue, supra note 68.
71 Chalmers, supra note 63, at 111.
72 C. Levine, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015), 5; Chalmers, ibid., at 1.
73 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 2.
74 Minutes No. 20, supra note 21, at 86; and Minute No. 24, supra note 21, at 99–100. See also Crenzel, supra note 21, at 32–75.
75 Minute No. 20, supra note 74, at 86 (‘una necesidad espiritual’); (‘política’). See also Crenzel, ibid., at 32–75.
76 Minute No. 23, supra note 21, at 92–4 (‘forma y contenido’).
77 Clarkson, supra note 13, at 1.
78 Ibid., at 18.
79 Entrega del Informe de la CONADEP, supra note 44.
80 Minute No. 37, supra note 21, at 152 (‘un libro básicamente técnico no será leído masivamente, por lo que es importante cargarlo de dramaticidad lo cual se logra fundamentalmente con la transcripción de testimonios’).
81 Ibid., (‘necesario’).
82 Ibid., (‘hechos’); (‘fuerza … a través del contenido objetivo’).
83 Ibid., (‘un mensaje a la población’); (‘una parte general, que llegue a todos los sectores’); (‘un contenido político amplio’).
84 On how literary ‘simple forms’ manifest worldviews see A. Jolles, Simple Forms: Legend, Saga, Myth, Riddle, Saying, Case, Memorabile, Fairytale, Joke (2017).
85 Minute No. 38, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 156 (‘participe en su redacción’); Minute No. 29, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 115. See also Crenzel, supra note 21, at 57, 68–71.
86 Minute No. 42, Libro de Actas, Fondo CONADEP (1983–1984), at 173; Minute No. 38, supra note 85, at 156. Taratuto’s role raised doubts (even amongst commissioners) about the authorship of the Prologue, which is, in Argentina and elsewhere, attributed to Sábato. Taratuto denied it and said that ‘the prologue was “all Sábato”’. See Crenzel, supra note 21, at 68, 70.
87 B. W. Schneider, The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama: ‘Whining’ Prologues and ‘Armed’ Epilogues (2011), 28.
88 Slaughter, supra note 14, at 1407.
89 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 1.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid., (emphasis added).
93 Ibid., at 1.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 M. Franco, ‘La “Teoría de los Dos Demonios”: Un Símbolo de la Posdictadura en la Argentina’, (2014) 11 A Contra Corriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin American 22; E. Crenzel, ‘Dos Prólogos para un mismo Informe. El Nunca Más y la Memoria de las Desapariciones’, (2007) 9 Prohistoria 49.
98 Franco, ibid., at 26, (‘la explicación del pasado de violencia de los años setenta como responsabilidad y resultado de dos violencias enfrentadas’) (emphasis in original).
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid., at 25 (‘las guerrillas de izquierda’).
101 Ibid., at 24 (‘la responsabilidad causal de la izquierda en el inicio de la violencia’).
102 Ibid., (‘equiparación entre ambas violencias’); (‘symmetry of strength and/or methods’); (‘equiparación de responsabilidades históricas’).
103 M. Guzmán Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (1994), 134–7; B. Bevernage, History, Memory, and State-Sponsored Violence: Time and Justice (2011), 38–43.
104 See G. Grandin, ‘Living in Revolutionary Time: Coming to Terms with the Violence of Latin America’s Long Cold War’, in G. Grandin and G. M. Joseph (eds.), A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence During Latin America’s Long Cold War (2010), at note 35 (‘Nuestros hijos no eran demonios: eran revolucionarios, guerrilleros maravillosos y únicos que defendieron a la patria’).
105 A. Orford, ‘Locating the International: Military and Monetary Interventions after the Cold War’, (1997) 38 Harv. Int. Law J. 443, at 449–50, 481.
106 See generally G. Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (2011); O. A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (2007); W. Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA interventions since World War II (1995).
107 Ibid.
108 Octavio Paz, Postdata (1970), 237 (‘Los modelos de desarrollo que hoy nos ofrecen el Oeste y el Este son compendios de horrores: ¿podremos nosotros inventar modelos más humanos y que correspondan a lo que somos?’).
109 Ibid.
110 Although it is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting how actors in the Global South resisted and actively challenged Western approaches to international law and development projects. See, for example, W. D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (2011); A. Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (2012); A. Becker Lorca, Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842–1933 (2014); L. Eslava, M. Fakhri and V. Nesiah (eds.), Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures (2017); J. von Bernstorff and P. Dann (eds.), The Battle for International Law: South-North Perspectives on the Decolonization Era (2019); J. Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism (2019), 75–115.
111 S. Pahuja, Decolonising International Law: Development, Economic Growth, and the Politics of Universality (2011), 172–253. Coined by UNSG Annan as ‘post-conflict peace-building’. See An Agenda for Peace, UN Doc. A/47/277– S/24111 (1992).
112 M. Craven, S. Pahuja and G. Simpson (eds.), International Law and the Cold War (2019) 3.
113 On how the Junta adopted the U.S.’s ‘national security doctrine’, see F. López, The FeathersTerrorism, Exiles and Civilian Anticommunism in South America (Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales, 2014). Scarfi develops two excellent historical accounts of how the operation of international law in Latin American states was determined by US imperialism, see J. P. Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in The Americas: Empire and Legal Networks (2017); J. P. Scarfi, El Imperio de la Ley: James Brown Scott y la Construcción de un Orden Jurídico Interamericano (2014).
114 Nino, supra note 1, at 186–189; Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 33–39.
115 Malamud-Goti, supra note 24, at 59–60; Nino, supra note 1, at 81; CONADEP, supra note 3, at 1–2, 6.
116 Nino, ibid., at 186–7.
117 Nino rejected international interventions for cases like Argentina. He proposed to create an ‘international forum’ that would not ‘destabiliz[e] democratic governments’. See ibid., at 186–9. For Nino’s debate with Orentlicher see D. F. Orentlicher, ‘Settling Accounts: The Duty to Prosecute Human Rights Violations of a Prior Regime’, (1991) 100 The Yale Law Journal 2537; C. S. Nino, ‘The Duty to Punish Past Abuses of Human Rights Put into Context: The Case of Argentina’, (1991) 100 Yale Law Journal 2619; D. F. Orentlicher, ‘A Reply to Professor Nino’, (1991) 100 Yale Law Journal 2641.
118 Nino, supra note 1, at 186–187; Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 33–48.
119 On the historical relationship between the concept of ‘civilization’ in international law, see L. Obregón, ‘The Civilized and the Uncivilized’, in B. Fassbender and A. Peters (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law (2012), 918–940.
120 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 4.
121 Ibid., at 5.
122 On the Junta’s rhetoric, see M. Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (1998). Also mentioned in CONADEP, supra note 3, at 4.
123 CONADEP, ibid., at 6.
124 Ibid.
125 Ibid.
126 CONADEP, supra note 6, at 393. The word ‘civilized’ (‘civilizado’) appears in the original in Spanish (capitalization in original).
127 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 1, 7.
128 Ibid., at 1.
129 Ibid., at 2.
130 Ibid., (emphasis added).
131 Ibid. Plural declaration is in the original text.
132 Ibid.
133 Ibid.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid., at 2–3.
136 P. Rush, ‘Dirty War Crimes: Jurisdictions of Memory and International Criminal Law’, in G. Simpson and K. J. Heller (eds.), The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials (2013), 367, at 370.
137 S. Kendall, ‘New Histories of the Present: Revisiting Post-WWII Juridical Forms (Review essay of Heller and Tanaka et al.)’, (2012) 12 Melbourne Journal of International Law 349, at 349.
138 For example, at the influential 1988 Aspen Institute’s State Crimes conference, which focused on transitions to democracy, the first agenda item was to discuss those trials. The Aspen Institute, State Crimes: Punishment of Pardon: Papers and Report of the Conference (1988), 1.
139 G. Simpson, Law, War and Crime: War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law (2007). On the jurisdictional work of legal categories, see Dorsett and McVeigh, supra note 18, at 71–6.
140 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 33 (‘reconstrucción del estado de [d]erecho’).
141 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 1.
142 Ibid.
143 Ibid., at 1–2.
144 Ibid., at 1.
145 Ibid.
146 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 37 (‘lo deseable y lo posible para saldar las deudas del pasado; pero siempre teniendo en miras el futuro’).
147 Franco, supra note 29, at 247 (‘un manto de olvido’); Crenzel, supra note 21, at 31–75.
148 R. Alfonsín, ‘El Discurso de Asunción de Raúl Alfonsín ante la Asamblea Legislativa’, Parlamentario.com, 10 December 2013, available at www.parlamentario.com/noticia-68393.html (‘como si aquí no hubiera ocurrido nada’).
149 Ibid., (‘se empeñará en esclarecer la situación de las personas desaparecidos’).
150 Alfonsín, supra note 148, (‘corregirlos y eliminarlos para siempre’); (‘decisiones irresponsables’).
151 Ibid., (‘echar los cimientos de la Argentina libre, grande, próspera, fraterna y generosa que queremos’).
152 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 37; Decreto 187/83, supra note 4.
153 Nino, supra note 1, at 67–70.
154 Mignone, supra note 32, at 156–157.
155 Ibid., at 158; Nino, supra note 1, at 72; Brysk, supra note 2, at 68–70.
156 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 39.
157 Ibid.
158 Crenzel, supra note 21, at 37–8; Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 40.
159 Decreto 187/83, supra note 4, (‘el interés legítimo’); (‘sociedad civil’); (‘comunidad internacional’).
160 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 4–5.
161 The original text in Spanish captures better this point. CONADEP, supra note 6, at 345. English in text: ‘no longer existed as citizens’. CONADEP, supra note 3, at 3.
162 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 4.
163 Ibid.
164 M. Elander, Figuring Victims in International Criminal Justice: The Case of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (2018), 15–33.
165 Ibid., at 2, 15; Zunino, supra note 1, at 67–72.
166 Amnesty International, Report Mission to Argentina (1977).
167 Commission on Human Rights: Report of the Thirty-Eighth Session, UN Doc E/CN.4/1982/30 (1982), at 48, 46–50.
168 Decreto 187/83, supra note 4.
169 Orford, supra note 105, at 444, 447–448.
170 Agencia Télam, ‘Uno por uno: los acuerdos de Argentina con el FMI en 35 años de democracia’, La Voz, 8 May 2018, available at www.lavoz.com.ar/politica/uno-por-uno-los-acuerdos-de-argentina-con-el-fmi-en-35-anos-de-democracia.
171 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 33 (‘se estuvo más lejos de la noción de estado de [d]erecho … [p]ero paradójicamente es el período en que mas dinero se le prestó a la Argentina, lo que demuestra la enorme hipocresía de los organismos internacionales de crédito en aquel entonces’). On how relying on international law to redress state-violence advances impunity and obscures the violence of capitalism in the roots of the conflict see T. Krever, ‘Ending Impunity? Eliding Political Economy in International Criminal Law’, in J. D. Haskell and U. Mattei (eds.), Research Handbook on Political Economy and Law (2015), 298.
172 C. Kedar, The International Monetary Fund and Latin America: The Argentine Puzzle in Context (2013), 165.
173 CONADEP, supra note 3, at 6.
174 Alfonsín, supra note 148, (‘con la democracia no sólo se vota, sino que también se come, se educa y se cura’).
175 On the Junta’s opposition’s concern about the sovereign debt see Multipartidaria Nacional, Propuesta de la Multipartidaria (1983).
176 Kedar, supra note 172, at 155. For an analysis of Argentina’s 2000s foreign debt see J. E. Roos, Why Not Default?: The Political Economy of Sovereign Debt (2019), 173–222. See also J. Dehm, ‘Rupture and Continuity: North–South Struggles over Debt and Economic Co-operation at the End of the Cold War’, in Craven, Pahuja and Simpson, supra note 112, at 287; S. Pahuja, ‘Technologies of Empire: I.M.F Conditionality and the Reinscription of the North/South Divide’, (2000) 13 LJIL 749; S. George, A Fate Worse Than Debt (1988; 1990), at 1–8.
177 N. Klein, The Shock Doctrine (2008).
178 Partido Justicialista (Kircher) is the most influential political party representing the Peronismo.
179 Galak, supra note 9, (‘El prólogo original no reproducía la filosofía política que hoy anima al Estado en la persecución de los crímenes de lesa humanidad’).
180 L. Gregorich, ‘Opinión. El peligro de reescribir la historia’, La Nación, 11 July 2006, available at www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/el-peligro-de-reescribir-la-historia-nid822374 (‘en nombre del interés político del presente’).
181 ‘Dura réplica de Alfonsín’, La Nación, 22 May 2006, available at www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/dura-replica-de-alfonsin-nid808028 (‘una peligrosa tendencia a reinventar la historia’).
182 ‘Editorial I. Cuando se Deforma la Verdad’, La Nación, 24 May 2006, available at www.lanacion.com.ar/editoriales/cuando-se-deforma-la-verdad-nid808438 (‘ejemplo de intolerancia y de desfiguración de la realidad’).
183 ‘Circula un Petitorio que Será Presentado ante la Editorial Eudeba. Piden que el prólogo del “Nunca Más” lleve la firma de Sabato’, Clarín, 13 November 2012, available at www.clarin.com/sociedad/Piden-prologo-lleve-firma-Sabato_0_H1imQ3TivQe.html (‘m[ostraba]al Informe tal cual fue, sin aditamento ideológico’).
184 Ibid., (‘una deuda que teníamos desde la política, desde el Estado’).
185 ‘La Versión Original, de 1985. Editan el “Nunca más” sin los Agregados del Kirchnerismo: Hay Polémica’, Clarín, 18 June 2016, available at www.clarin.com/cultura/editan-agregados-kirchnerismo-polemica_0_EJRDRYRN-.html.
186 Crenzel, supra note 97.
187 Balardini, supra note 7, at 52, 56–7. See also M. F. Carmody, Human Rights, Transitional Justice, and the Reconstruction of Political Order in Latin America (2018), 117–206; V. Bell, The Art of Post-dictatorship: Ethics and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina (2014), 1–15.
188 Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, ‘Baldosas por la Memoria’, available at www.espaciomemoria.ar/baldosas-por-la-memoria.
189 Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, ‘Megacausa ESMA: El Juicio’, available at www.cels.org.ar/especiales/megacausaesma.
190 Agencia Télam, ‘Se Cumplen 13 años de la Desaparición de Julio López’, La Voz, 18 September 2019, available at www.lavoz.com.ar/politica/se-cumplen-13-anos-de-desaparicion-de-julio-lopez.
191 Casa Rosada, ‘Macri: “Queremos volver a ser parte del mundo”’, 19 September 2016, available at www.casarosada.gob.ar/slider-principal/37334-mauricio-macri-queremos-volver-a-ser-parte-del-mundo-y-cortar-con-el-aislacionismo.
192 Ibid., (‘para volver a ser un país confiable’).
193 E. Barcelona, ‘Los Presidentes Entierran el ALCA’, Página 21, 5 November 2015, available at www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-285456-2015-11-05.html.
194 D. Pardo, ‘¿Por qué Argentina está en el G20 si tiene una de las economías más frágiles del mundo?’, BBC, 30 November 2018, available at www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-46390007.
195 IMF Communications Department, ‘Press Release No. 18/362: IMF and Argentina Authorities Reach Staff-Level Agreement on First Review Under the Stand-By Arrangement’, 26 September 2018, available at www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/09/26/pr18362-argentina-imf-and-argentina-authorities-reach-staff-level-agreement.
196 ‘Martes de Protesta. Paro general: todo lo que hay que saber’, Clarín, 24 September 2018, available at www.clarin.com/sociedad/paro-general-25-septiembre-saber_0_JwSvcFkq2.html.
197 Photograph by author (2018).
198 Photograph by author (2018).
199 Alfonsín, supra note 31, at 244. (‘No sé cómo se va a resolver este conflicto entre una norma internacional que se dice imperativa para todos los Estados y el derecho de los pueblos a “autodeterminarse”, a decidir el mejor modo de resolver sus transiciones democráticas … En algunas oportunidades, incluso las Naciones Unidas han legitimado la sanción de leyes de amnistía … ¿Son nulas todas esas amnistías? ¿Las sociedades están obligadas siempre a castigar aunque de esa manera fracase el establecimiento de la democracia? Estas son las preguntas de un debate que creo alcanza al mundo entero.’).
200 Ibid., at 242–6.
201 E. Tagliaferro, ‘Crímenes Imprescriptibles’, Página/21, 7 August 2003, available at www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/subnotas/1-8848-2003-08-07.html; Carmody, supra note 187, at 181–197.
202 (‘No se puede dejar descansar a la memoria, no se puede uno arrellanar en la comodidad del olvido, porque el hombre ¿es memoria o qué?’)
203 ‘Sobre el lugar’, Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, available at www.espaciomemoria.ar/lugar.
204 Ibid.
205 The case of Macarena Gelman occurred within the scheme of the CIA-supported Operation Cóndor. Operation Cóndor, created in 1975, was an international secret alliance between the intelligence services of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, and Bolivia. One of Cóndor’s main aims was to collaborate to successfully conduct the forced disappearances and separate them from their newborn children. See Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho International (CEJIL), ‘REF: Caso CDH- Gelman vs. Uruguay. Alegatos Finales Escritos’, 10 December 2010. On Cóndor see generally López, supra note 113; J. P. McSherry, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (2005).
206 M. López San Miguel, ‘Todos Somos Bastante Más de lo Que Nos Tocó Vivir’, Página/21, 21 April 2014, available at www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/dialogos/21-244541-2014-04-21.html.
207 E. Crenzel, ‘El Prólogo del Nunca Más y La Teoría de los Dos Demonios. Reflexiones Sobre una Representación de la Violencia Política en la Argentina’, (2013) 1 Contenciosa 1, at 11.
208 Slaughter, supra note 14, at 5.
209 On how international law suppresses its ‘others’ through its different technologies and institutions see S. Pahuja, ‘Laws of Encounter: A Jurisdictional Account of International Law’, (2013) 1 London Review of International Law 63; S. Chalmers and S. Pahuja, ‘(Economic) Development and the Rule of Law’, in M. Loughin and J. Meierhenrich (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law (forthcoming); S. Chalmers, Liberia and the Dialectic of Law: Critical Theory, Pluralism, and the Rule of Law (2018). For an ethnographic study about the consequences of mobilizing Western international law as ‘standard’ in non-Western local post-conflict processes see P. Clark, The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers (2010). On Global South jurists resisting to Western international law, and fighting for a meeting of international laws see Eslava, Fakhri and Nesiah, supra note 110.
210 See, for example, C. Ramírez-Barat (ed.) Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society: Beyond Outreach (2014); P. Rush and O. Simić, The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory After Atrocity (2014); E. Garnsey, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition (2019); M. Aksenova et al., ‘AJIL Unbound by Symposium: Art, Aesthetics, and International Justice’, (2020) 114 AJIL Unbound 103; M. Elander, ‘Visualizing Law and Justice at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’, (2020) 14 AJIL Unbound 128; L. Lixinski, Legalized Identities: Cultural Heritage Law and the Shaping of Transitional Justice (2021).
211 See, for example, J. E. K. Parker, Acoustic jurisprudence: Listening to the Trial of Simon Bikindi (2015); H. Kazan, ‘The Architecture of Slow, Structural, and Spectacular Violence and the Poetic Testimony of War’, (2018) 44 Australian Feminist Law Journal; L. Eslava, ‘The Moving Location of Empire: Indirect Rule, International Law, and the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment’, (2018) 31 LJIL 539; J. Hohmann and D. Joyce (eds.), International Law’s Objects (2018); K. Grady, ‘For whom the bell tolls: London’s Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial 1990–2015’, (2019) 7 London Review of International Law 353; Vázquez Guevara, supra note 13; K. Miles, ‘Visuality of a Treaty: Reflection on Versailles’, (2020) 8 London Review of International Law 7; M. Bak McKenna, ‘Designing for International Law: The Architecture of International Organizations 1922–1952’, (2020) 34 LJIL 22; C. Schwöbel-Patel, Marketing Global Justice: The Political Economy of International Criminal Law (2021); Chalmers and Pahuja, supra note 13.
212 Chalmers and Pahuja, ibid., at 9.