Victims Of Human Rights Violations Research Articles

Human Rights in Europe: No Grounds for Complacency

It is difficult to categorize exactly this lively, accessible, topical and obviously well-informed discussion of the current state of play regarding the protection of human rights in the European context. The book comprises a fairly substantial personal/professional reflection (described in the sub-title as ‘viewpoints’) by Thomas Hammarberg, based largely on his experience since 2006 as the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, and as such presents informative and insightful bite-sized discussions of a range of contemporary issues within the context of the European (and more exactly Council of Europe) protection regime. The text is largely based on reports and recommendations written following visits to Council of Europe member states and meetings there with victims of human rights violations and their families, politicians, officials, lawyers, judges, religious leaders, journalists, civil society representatives and inmates of prisons and other institutions. In terms of presentation, a major virtue of the book is its readability and immediate clarity, so that it can be read equally well by more expert researchers and teachers seeking reference material, students at a number of different levels and more general readers looking to be better informed. In this way, Hammarberg’s discussion will complement and add to the systematic technicality of a textbook or the focussed and more penetrating analysis of research monographs and papers; in other words, it is an account that is informed and informative, and thought-provoking rather than exhaustive or systematic. One or two examples can be used to illustrate both the incisive and informative quality and also the flavour of delivery of the book. In a foray into human rights education, the author comments nicely (at p 336) that:

THE CREATION STORY OF KASHMIRI PEOPLE: THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

If a group wishes to exercise the right to self-determination, they need to establish that they are a “people” within the international law definition, thereby triggering the ability to claim this right. Thus, the definition of the term “people” is the key in cases of self-determination and always posits difficult challenges. This article aims to determine whether the “Kashmiri people” could be identified as a group that fits within the contemporary non-exhaustive definition of people. Having ascended from the level of subjects of an autocratic rule to victims of human rights violations, are Kashmiris now in a position to exercise a right to self-determination?

"Defector," "Refugee," or "Migrant"? North Korean Settlers in South Korea's Changing Social Discourse

IntroductionOn February 27, 2012, following lawmaker Park Sun-young's2 eleven-day hunger strike highlighting the human rights issue relating to Korean repatriation, the South Korean Parliament passed a resolution urging China to discontinue the practice of returning Korean border crossers. This action has triggered intensified international attention toward the human rights of Koreans, with the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs subsequently approving the extension of the Korean Human Rights Act, last reauthorized in 2008, until 2017. The British deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, also applied symbolic pressure on Korea and China by meeting Korean settlers during a visit to South Korea for the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit in March. Given the climate in South Korea as it faces two major elections amidst growing uncertainty across East Asia in the wake of the emergence of the Kim Jong-un regime following the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011, it is perhaps not surprising that the Korea issue is being revisited in 2012. In the bitter competition between the two opposite camps (conservative versus democratic) in the run-up to the two elections in the South, the renewed attention to the Korean issue has been used to reframe existing indicators that distinguished positions within the remnants of the Cold War legacy-especially those that capitalized on fostering anti-North Korean sentiments. Aligning with domestic circumstances, the United States has added its voice by pressuring Korea and China in the language of human rights, foregrounding humanitarian imperialism, the salient feature of Western discourse in international affairs and post-Cold War policy,3 as a prominent component in the geopolitical matrix of East Asia. Consequently, contrary to the dominant tendency of previous years, 2012 sees Korean border crossers and arrivals in the South reconstructed as purely victims of human rights violations and political refugees. This paper brings this changing understanding and naming of Korean arrivals within the transient social discourse of South Korea into question, and argues that specific eras separate and interpellate Korean arrivals through different names and roles depending on the particular and interests of the time. Such interpellation instrumentalizes the figure of the migrant in the process of stabilizing South Korean society.North Korean arrivals to the South have been defined and understood in various ways over time: from heroic figures to economic migrants. Given the systematic and ideological confrontation following the 1953 separation, strong Cold War ideology governed the two Koreas and produced those people that, to either side, would be labeled as defectors. The number of Korean arrivals to the South was 607 for the period between 1953 and 1989, resulting in their rarity being highly valued and fully utilized by the South Korean government in the ideological war. However, the number has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s, coinciding with the gradual replacement of the Cold War era by a post-Cold War ideology across the Korean Peninsula. From 1990 to 1993, only 34 Koreans came to the South, but the next five years (1994-1998) saw 306 new arrivals, with the figure radically increasing over the subsequent three years, reaching 1,043. From 2001 onward, more than 1,000 Koreans arrived each year, with the total number peaking at 23,000 in 2011.4 This circumstantial change has led to their redefinition from the North's soldier to a variety of different names such as defected ethnic Korean, North Korean refugee, defected Korean resident, and more recently North Korean migrant.5Following the trajectory of this name giving, this article identifies three different historical stages in the processes of situating the Korean arrivals' position in South Korean social discourse. …

Direitos humanos e cidadania: a participação no Sistema Interamericano de Proteção dos Direitos Humanos

A participação – princípio constitucional – é um direito do cidadão brasileiro para que possa defender seus interesses. Recentemente os Direitos Humanos passaram por um processo de internacionalização e, a partir disso, a jurisdição para conhecer as violações de direitos humanos não é mais exclusiva do Estado em que ocorreu o fato, mas de toda a sociedade internacional. Esse movimento redefine o próprio conceito de cidadania ao ampliar a gama de direitos dos cidadãos. Portanto, as vítimas de violações de direitos humanos têma possibilidade de buscar a reparação dos danos que lhes foram causados através de um novo meio de participação, que consiste na formulação de denúncias a organismos internacionais de proteção aos direitos humanos. Assim, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo desenvolver o tema dos direitos humanos com um enfoque internacional, mais especificamente sobre o Sistema Interamericano de Proteção dos Direitos Humanos como um novo meio eficaz dos cidadãos participarem.

Construction of a questionnaire for readiness to reconcile in victims of human rights violations

BackgroundPost-conflict reconciliation is supposed to have a positive impact on survivors of war and conflict. However, knowledge is limited as validated questionnaires to assess individual readiness to reconcile in the context of human rights violations are still missing.ObjectivesThis study aimed to develop and pilot-test a questionnaire to assess individual readiness to reconcile in victims of human rights violations.MethodsThe questionnaire was developed and pilot-tested in a sample of 60 adult Kurdish refugees from Turkey. In addition to the questionnaire, trauma exposure, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, perceived emotional closeness to the Kurdish people as well as the participants’ ability to differentiate between perpetrators and the people in general were assessed in structured interviews, and their associations with readiness to reconcile were analyzed.ResultsFactor and item analysis resulted in an 18-item questionnaire with three subscales (openness to interactions; absence of feelings of revenge; openness to conflict resolution). Cronbach's α for the subscales ranged from 0.74 to 0.90, explaining 61% of the total variance. The ability to differentiate between perpetrators and people in general and perceived emotional closeness were the best predictors for readiness to reconcile. The level of trauma exposure was not linked to readiness to reconcile. Although readiness to reconcile was negatively related to PTSD, depression and anxiety, none of these associations reached statistical significance.ConclusionsThe questionnaire appears to be a reliable measure with good psychometric properties. Further validations in different samples are needed.

The Moral Case for Restorative Justice as a Corollary of the Responsibility to Protect: A Rwandan Case Study of the Insufficiency of Impact of Retributive Justice on the Rights and Well-Being of Genocide Survivors

This article analyzes how the current framework of retributive justice pursued by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda fails to respect the human rights and to enable the well-being of Rwandan genocide survivors. Rwandan genocide survivors currently suffer from widespread poverty, lack of access to health care and housing, inadequate educational opportunity, and food insecurity and malnutrition. It calls for the application of restorative justice as an extension of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect for genocide survivors to be included in the remit of the Tribunal and UN humanitarian and development programs in Rwanda. It examines current and past restorative justice programs in various countries around the world to provide tangible examples of ways in which restorative justice can be implemented. It critically questions the moral logic of exclusive reliance on retributive justice that ignores the consequences of genocide by punishing the guilty without simultaneously assisting the victims. Finally, it urges that the Declaration of Basic Principles on Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Human Rights Violations and Article 75 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court be applied to the work of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Institutionalizing Human Rights in Latin America: The Role of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights System

This article focuses on the phenomenon of internalizing human rights norms within the Inter-American Court of Human Rights system – collectively comprised of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (“Commission”) and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (“Court”). The process of internalization of human rights norms within the Inter-American Court of Human Rights system involves human rights activists, those seeking to remedy wrongs which they acknowledge as existing in society before them, and juridical actors using the powerful institutions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights system in order to achieve the aim of highlighting and attempting to stop these practices. The process of internalization within this system also involves bringing the harms suffered by victims, their families and their communities into the open, acknowledging the wrongs done to them, along with the myriad impacts of these wrongs, and preserving the dignity and core humanity of the victims of human rights violations. The article examines the place of the Commission and the Court within the larger human rights policies of the Organization of American States as well as the procedural relationship between the Commission and the Court. It discusses the role that the Commission has come to play as an advocate for those who have suffered human rights violations at the hands of a state or state actors. The article asserts that throughout the history of the Commission’s role in relation to the Court, the Commission has become increasingly active in advocating for those who allege substantial human rights violations and ensures that these victims are seen by the Court as having essential humanity as well as legal standing and rights. It also argues that the Commission is the fundamental place for the institutionalization of the voices of human rights victims and those who support them. The article then examines the jurisprudence of the Court with a view to understanding how the Court uses itself as a tool of human rights. It argues that the Court has expanded the concept of human rights protections in Latin America to take a holistic and humanity-based view rather than functioning within a formalistic legal structure. In so doing, the article asserts that the Court reflects on the reality of human rights violations and their impacts and the importance of bringing these to light, at once validating the suffering and humanity of victims and chastising those states and state actors responsible for committing abuses against the populations they controlled.

ARIO and Human Rights Protection: Leaving the Individual in the Cold

International organizations may be regarded as international public authorities, since their acts increasingly impinge on individuals, private associations, enterprises, States, or public institutions. However, this development has not been followed by the creation of a corresponding system of international legal responsibility for international organizations. Some are even seen as a risk to fundamental rights. The Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) bring some progress in this regard, but nevertheless leave the victims of human rights violations largely overlooked. The article analyses some of the achievements and gaps of ARIO with respect to human rights protection and explores the possibilities for victims of human rights violations to seek remedies against international organizations.

Transitional Justice in the Arab Countries: Opportunities and Challenges

My remarks will highlight some of the main factors that affect how we can consider transitional justice issues in the Arab countries that have undergone transition. I will then briefly reflect on how the five components of transitional justice have been implemented in these countries. FACTORS AFFECTING THE TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE DISCOURSE There are five factors that should be taken into account when considering transitional justice issues in the Arab countries that have undergone some change. The first factor to take into account is the manner in which the transitions took place. Peaceful protest led by young men and women was initially the way to bring about change in Tunisia and Egypt. Libya provided a different model with the foreign military intervention and the determination of the male fighters leading to the toppling of the dictatorship. The result is that one of the major challenges in Libya today is the weapons scattered in the hands of young men, with different armed groups not always operating under the control of the National Transitional Council. In Yemen the desires of the youth and powerful tribal leaders converged, and eventually led to the handover of power by President Saleh to the vice-president. In Bahrain, while the protest continues to be peaceful, it is met with force. The second factor is the role of social media. There is no doubt that social media played a significant role among the educated middle class and youth, particularly students and young professionals. But this was not the case with the poorer and illiterate sectors of society. The result is that the increased space for liberty achieved by the youth allowed Islamic movements which were previously outlawed to come to power through the ballot box. The appeal of these movements came from two main factors. First, it was their ability to organize themselves and address the social needs of a large part of the population through the alternative social services they have been able to provide for decades while corrupt regimes were destroying the middle class and pocketing the national budget. Second, the oppression inflicted by the previous regimes on members of the Islamic movements through torture, unfair trial, censorship, and above all forging elections for decades, gave these groups a level of legitimacy that contributed to their winning of the first free and fair elections conducted in Tunisia and Egypt. The problem is that while many of the emerging leaders of today are yesterday's victims of human rights violations, this is not a guarantee that they can rule on the basis of human rights principles. Understanding how the norms operate while making policy decisions will be key to fostering the democratic nature of the emerging governing structures. Human rights dialogue with these emerging groups is essential. The third factor is the key role of satellite television channels in promoting or even directing the protest. However, the exact role they played is yet to be fully understood and objectively analyzed. Through the way the coverage and debates have taken place, some scenarios were advanced, particularly with regard to military intervention. We see this today with the comparisons being made between Libya and Syria. Also, the coverage was not even-handed, with some of the protest in countries like Bahrain receiving less attention. The fourth factor is the role played by the military in the region, which has led to different scenarios for change. The role played by the army in Tunisia to protect the protestors and facilitate the power change remains unique. In Egypt, while the military initially stayed on the fence and then became an element of change, today they are unhelpfully clinching to power. This is complicating the transition and making the situation in Egypt closer to that of Chile and Argentina, where the military held onto their privileged status for a long time. In Syria the army is largely on the side of the government and a main instrument of oppression, and we are yet to see major defections. …

Corporate Accountability and Indigenous Peoples: Prospects and Limitations of the US Alien Tort Claims Act

Indigenous peoples are often the victims of human rights violations at the hands of multinational corporations (MNCs). Since there are few avenues to ensure accountability for such violations, the US Alien Tort Claim Act (ATCA) has become one of the principal vehicles to ensure such liability. With varying degrees of success, ATCA has proven to be an attractive statute for ensuring accountability of MNCs. In recent years several cases have been lodged by indigenous peoples, including pioneering cases against corporations such as Texaco, Shell, Chevron and Rio Tinto. This article aims at analysing the prospects but also the limitations of such a national tort act to provide remedies for human rights violations to indigenous communities. In doing so the article provides a practical analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of using ATCA as a tool for human rights litigation against MNCs.

Tort Law and Human Rights: Brothers in Arms On the Role of Tort Law in the Area of Business and Human Rights

Over the past decades, transnational corporations (TNCs) have come under increasing public scrutiny for their involvement in human rights violations, particularly in developing countries. One may think of child and slave labour in the supply chain, cooperation with violent or corrupt regimes, and grand scale environmental pollution. Legal protection for victims of human rights violations against TNCs is poor. Public international law protects the freedom of trade but does not regulate the way companies use this freedom. Moreover, it is disputed whether international human rights law can impose obligations on companies. This has triggered the question what role national tort laws can play to fill this protection gap. This article first paints the factual background and the lack of international rules protecting victims of human rights violations (Section I). Section II lists the practical and legal problems victims face if they want to hold a TNC to account (such as fact-finding, forum, and applicable law). Section III provides an overview of tort law claims filed against TNCs in the United States and Europe. Finally, Section IV analyses the standard of care in tort law for a TNC to prevent its involvement in human rights violations, particularly through its subsidiaries and suppliers.

Watch Out, Ministers! You are Not Immune under the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Recently the United State Supreme Court made a decision on whether the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) should apply to a foreign official. In a U.S court, a civil action was brought by some victims of human rights violations, such as torture and extrajudicial killings in Somalia, commanded by a former Somalian government official who was Defense Minister at the time of such violations. The foreign official claimed immunity from the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts under the FSIA which grants immunity, with exceptions, to a foreign state including “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state.” He contended that since he was a high-ranking government official, he could be categorized as an “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state,” and subsequently, he is immune as a foreign state The Supreme Court rejected his claim, denying the application of the FSIA to the immunity of foreign officials. The Court's main argument is that an “agency or instrumentality” under the FSIA means an “entity” which includes a legal person, not a natural person. Thus, the immunity issue of a foreign official cannot be analyzed by the FSIA, but by the common law such as case laws. This decision is quite meaningful since it clearly sets up the scope of the FSIA by distinguishing immunity for a foreign state from that for foreign officials. With this new decision, the Court abrogated precedents of lower courts which have allowed or discussed immunity of foreign officials under the FSIA. Although this decision left open some important questions, such as whether a former foreign official can be immune if he acted within his official capacity, whether human right violations can be regarded as acts committed within or outside the scope of official capacity, whether such human right violations may be subject to exceptions to immunity, etc., the decision at least primarily may prevent a foreign official from simply raising his immunity defense under the FSIA. Consequently, it is expected that immunity of foreign officials will be scrutinized, by applying the well-recognized common law including international law. This paper takes a glance at the FSIA from its legislative history to rules on immunity for a foreign state to find out whether the FSIA may apply to foreign officials, and then reviews backgrounds and discussions of this case from lower courts to the Supreme Court.

Trauma, duelo, reparación y memoria

The article describes and reflects on the experience of psychosocial and therapeutic work carried out with victims of human rights violations during the military regime in Chile (1973-1990). This experience contributed to the inclusion of medical and psychological care in the State reparation policies since 1990. The evolution in the modes of treatment and psychosocial intervention are discussed in the light of the tasks and dilemmas which emerge in the context of political transition: recognition of and redress for victims, the truth or concealment of crimes, justice versus impunity; oblivion or different forms of memory and their impact on the lives of the victims and on the political reconciliation process.

Trading Truth for Justice?

In this article I pursue two aims. First I advance an internal critique of hard-core retribution as it is usually advanced by victims of human rights violations. The focus of this penal approach on submitting all the military personnel guilty of human rights violations to harsh punishments risks jeopardizing the (clearly retributive) demand of punishing all those involved in the abuses. Particularly when extensive time has elapsed after the misdeeds, the most rational policy seems to be a negotiation model that offers gross human rights abusers punishment reductions in exchange for valuable information about the facts. Defending such a penal negotiation model constitutes the second aim of this article. I conclude that in order to satisfy the (hard-core) retributive demand of punishing all those (both military and civilian) guilty of human rights abuses, it is required not to submit all military personal indicted to retributive punishments.

Legal Remedies for Human Rights Violations in the Armed Conflict in Chechnya: The Approach of the European Court of Human Rights in Context

AbstractThe article discusses the efficacy of the remedies offered to successful applicants by the European Court of Human Rights in the cases coming from the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. It submits, firstly, that proper establishment of facts constitutes a remedy in itself for victims of human rights violations in an armed conflict. It then analyses the establishment of facts by the Court in the Chechen cases and argues that the assessment of evidence under the Court's burden of proof 'beyond reasonable doubt' was applied unevenly in different cases. The paper suggests that the Court obtains evidence proprio motu, which it has never done in the Chechen cases. Secondly, this paper evaluates the European Court's practice to limit the just satisfaction by monetary awards and to consistently deny the applicants' requests for non-monetary awards. It then discusses the developments in the international law on reparations for human rights violations under the ECHR and in the Inter-American and UN systems, and argues for a need to enhance the European Court's awards of just satisfaction. Finally, the paper assesses the supervision of the execution of judgments in the Chechen cases, finds it ineffective, and suggests that more actions are required from the Court in order to deal effectively with alleged human rights violations arising from armed conflicts.

Getting Even or Getting Equal? Retributive Desires and Transitional Justice

This article examines the effect that different policy interventions of transitional justice have on the desires of the victims of human rights violations for retribution. The retributive desires assessed in this article are conceptualized as individual, collective, and abstract demands for the imposition of a commensurate degree of suffering upon the offender. We suggest a plausible way of reducing victims’ retributive desires. Instead of “getting even” in relation to the suffering, victims and perpetrators may “get equal” in relation to their respective statuses, which were affected by political crimes. The article hypothesizes that the three classes of transitional justice: (1) reparation that empowers victims by financial compensation, truth telling, and social acknowledgment; (2) retribution that inflicts punishment upon perpetrators; and (3) reconciliation that renews civic relationship between victims and perpetrators through personal contact, apology, and forgiveness; each contributes to restoring equality between victims and perpetrators, and in so doing decreases the desires that victims have for retribution. In order to test our hypotheses, we conducted a survey of former political prisoners in the Czech Republic. Results from the regression analysis reveal that financial compensation, social acknowledgement, punishment, and forgiveness are likely to reduce victims’ retributive desires.

Novel Truths: Literature and Truth Commissions

Novel Truths:Literature and Truth Commissions Paul Gready (bio) Popular culture—film, theatre, music, and literature—often leads the way in helping a society face uncomfortable truths. —Elizabeth Cole and Judy Barsalou, United or Divide? This article has two objectives. Firstly, it documents the author's personal journey, initially to a place of disillusionment with a relativist stance adopted by many within the cultural studies and literary fraternity towards the truth-telling of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), notably around the time of the publication of the first five volumes of its report in 1998. The journey, however, culminated in a re-engagement with the way in which individual novelists employed this logic in their work to explore "uncomfortable truths." Secondly, the article identifies the ways in which what I call "novel truths" have duplicated the TRC's dominant discourse of "speaking truth to reconciliation," but also unpacked the silences and "unfinished business" of apartheid and the TRC. By "novel truths" I mean the unique truth practices and repertoire available to the novel as a genre, as distinct from other genres such as the human rights report. In South Africa, speaking truth to reconciliation was grounded in the provision of an officially-sanctioned testimonial space, predominantly for victims of human rights violations. This space was both framed in a discourse of forgiveness, catharsis and healing, and linked to a broader nation-building project framed in terms of reconciliation. In this endeavor, human rights ultimately facilitated the speaking of truth to reconciliation. This is unusual territory for human rights which is more accustomed to speaking truth to power, and an adversarial relationship with the state rather than one more akin to partnership. The article argues that South African novels have [End Page 156] engaged with the speaking truth to reconciliation paradigm, but have also shone a light on issues such as the enduring appeal of revenge and retribution, the prevalence of informing and betrayal on both sides of the political divide, the complicity of white beneficiaries in apartheid's crimes, and the complexity of certain black identities (e.g., those designated "colored" who "played white"). The South African TRC is one, high profile member of an expanding global family of truth commissions. It is possible to distil the core characteristics of these institutions down to 1) a focus on the past; 2) their origins at the point of transition away from war or authoritarian rule; 3) the investigation of patterns of abuses and specific violations committed over a period of time, rather than a single event; 4) a focus on violations of human rights, and sometimes of humanitarian norms as well; 5) a temporary, short-term life span, usually culminating in the production of a report with recommendations; 6) official status, as commissions are sanctioned, authorized, or empowered by the state (and sometimes by armed opposition groups, in the context of a peace accord); and 7) a victim-centered approach.1 Truth commissions have traditionally been seen as representing a middle path, where prosecutions may be precluded because of a negotiated settlement, tense power balance and amnesty provision, for example, but doing nothing is deemed unacceptable. More broadly, the rallying call of transitional justice is "never again," and it seeks to engage with a past of authoritarian rule or conflict in such a way as to ensure non-repetition. Its main interventions are trials and truth commissions. Kathryn Sikkink and Carrie Booth Walling have recently made the case for a "justice cascade," with Argentina as a driving force, arguing that accountability for past human rights abuses is spreading through the increased use of mechanisms such as trials and truth commissions. Their estimate suggests that by mid-2004, 35 truth commissions had been established world-wide, and that momentum is building around this particular trend in political globalization.2 Although several high profile commissions preceded the South African TRC, notably in Latin America (Argentina, Chile, El Salvador), and others have followed in its wake (Guatemala, East Timor, Sierra Leone), the South African experience is central to this expansionary narrative, for reasons which are outlined below. Many commentators now do not see trials and truth commissions as mutually exclusive alternatives...

Transitional or Post-transitional Justice? Recent Developments in the Spanish Case

It is the intention of this article to promote a more dynamic and longer term view of transitional justice processes than is customary in this literature. An attempt will be made, by focusing on the recent and dramatic developments in the Spanish case, to identify the factors that explain why policies designed to compensate victims of human rights violations committed by the previous regime are susceptible to post-transition transformations. Although the focus will be on the Spanish experience, some of the questions asked and the explanations provided could be applied to other cases.

Human Rights in US Courts: Alien Tort Claims Act Litigation after Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain

In Filartiga v. Pena-Irala (1980), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that victims of human rights violations could sue their oppressors civilly in US courts under an eighteenth century law now called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). Controversy raged over the Filartiga decision and the proper interpretation of the ATCA for 24 years. Then in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), the Supreme Court issued its first ATCA decision. This essay analyzes the effect of the Sosa decision on the development of human rights law in US courts. I find that while the federal judiciary is responding to some of the Supreme Court’s directives, lower courts still retain a great deal of discretion in handling ATCA cases.

Detection, Dictatorship and Democracy: Santiago de Chile in Ramón Díaz Eterovic's Heredia Series

This article examines the ways in which Chilean author Ramón Díaz Eterovic uses his Heredia series to cast a critical gaze on contemporary Santiago, looking at the historical events and socio-political forces that have shaped the modern capital. The author is particularly concerned with the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship and with the lack of progress in achieving justice for victims of human rights violations under successive Concertación governments. Through the subjective consciousness of his detective Díaz Eterovic it also considers the socio-political impact of the neoliberal policies introduced by the military government and continued into the present. Concomitant with this, the article looks at the related issue of contested historical memory and how Díaz Eterovic, by means of the clear ideological stance of his detective, engages in a process of recuperation of the historical memory of the defeated.