Re-Constructing Criminal Accountability for Human Rights Abuses: Argentina 1990-2024

Abstract

Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina endured a brutal dictatorship. At the center of the system of repression was the practice of what would later be termed enforced disappearances, consisting of the kidnapping, torturing, and killing of individuals, while refusing to provide any information about their fate or whereabouts, along with many other atrocious crimes. The defeat in the Malvinas War in 1982 catalyzed a transition to democracy in which, unlike in most other parts of Latin America, the armed forces were unable to dictate the terms to the new regime. When Raúl Alfonsín won the presidential elections in 1983, a path-changing process of what we now call transitional justice was unleashed. The first operational truth commission—the Comisión Nacional sobre Desaparición de Personas, or CONADEP—was created and, in a few months, it was able to conduct a substantial investigation into the systemic nature of the former regime’s criminality. Its findings were published in 1984 in the Never Again (Nunca Más) report. Together with the leaders of the armed organizations, Alfonsín ordered that the members of the first four Juntas who had governed the country be put on trial. After a military court proved unwilling to prosecute them, the Federal Appeals Court in the City of Buenos Aires lawfully seized the investigation, prosecution, and trial. By the end of 1985, five members of the Juntas had been convicted for human rights abuses and sentenced to prison, while the other four were acquitted. Further criminal proceedings ensued, and a large number of prosecutions were underway by the end of 1986, against the will of the Administration. Public opinion, by contrast, overwhelmingly embraced this initial accountability process...