Formation et reformulation d'une cause. Le cas des droits de l'homme au Chili, de la dictature à la politique de réconciliation nationale

Abstract

RFormation and Reformulation of a Cause. Chilean Human Rights Cause Lawyering from Dictatorship to the National Reconciliation Policy Daniela Cuadros Garland This paper focuses on the trajectories of nine Chilean cause-lawyers who are particularly active in the defense of victims of gross human rights violations since 1973. Catholicism and universalism justify their practices in way through which they became totally devoted to the cause of human rights, helped by international human rights networks and especially by the international events around the Letelier and the Pinochet trials. The modality of this specifie type of cause lawerying is built on the support of the Catholic Church under the dictatorship and consists on a constant juridical effort to regenerate the cause in order to affront those political changes that affects and tend to limit transitional justice. In so doing, Chilean human rights cause-lawyers promote a human rights culture formerly unknown in the judicial arena and in the public debate and also acquired great influence in transforming the legal culture in Chile.