Transitional Justice and the Struggle against Impunity : Lessons for Mexico from Latin America
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame
Mexico City, October 21–22, 2016
Santa Fe Auditorium, CIDE
Objectives: What is our aim?
Latin America has been widely recognized as one of the pioneering world regions in the use of transitional justice mechanisms to confront state impunity and overcome long histories of gross human rights violations. But Mexico has been absent from this human rights revolution. This conference gathers leading Mexican academics and social leaders to engage in a dialogue with international experts and human rights practitioners around two important questions:
- What can Mexico learn from the best transitional justice practices in Latin America?
- Would transitional justice mechanisms help the country overcome the unprecedented crises of insecurity, gross human rights violations and state impunity?
Content: What does the conference entail?
The conference will focus on truth-seeking processes and their impact on the search for justice. We will try to understand why truth commissions and processes of historical memory have played a foundational role in the struggle against impunity and toward justice in postauthoritarian and post-conflict societies.
We will focus on three experiences: 1) Peru, where the state sponsored one of the most successful truth commissions in Latin America; 2) Guatemala, where the Catholic Church led an independent project of historical memory, which served as the basis for the UN-sponsored truth commission; and 3) Colombia, where in the midst of war, civil society spearheaded a process of historical memory, which was later on extended and sponsored by the state.
Our hope is to understand when truth-seeking processes open the way to justice—domestic judicial prosecution against perpetrators of gross human rights violations, reparations in favor of victims, and major institutional reforms that can serve as guarantors of no-repetition.
Why Mexico?
Mexico is undergoing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Ten years after the state declared the “War on Drugs” and organized crime, the numbers are staggering: 150,000 deaths, 30,000 people missing, thousands of displaced families, and hundreds of massacres. But we know little about these victims because the state declines to share any meaningful information and because 98% of crime in Mexico remains unpunished.
What we do know is that agents from state institutions have played a key role in the production of criminal violence—when they defect from the armed forces and the police and join organized crime; when they protect criminals from their position of power; or when they fight criminals using illegal practices and stimulate, rather than deter, violence. We also know that these state agents are part of the same security and judicial institutions that committed gross human rights violations during the authoritarian period and that remained untouched under democracy.
Conference participants will discuss whether transitional justice mechanisms could help Mexico break the linkages between a long history of impunity and recurring cycles of violence.
Why CIDE and the University of Notre Dame?
CIDE and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame are academic institutions with a long tradition of scholarly research and the promotion of democratic institutions and practices and of human rights and justice. We hope that the global dialogue that both institutions are spearheading will help Mexico think about best practices in the struggle against impunity and about policies and actions that would channel the country on the path toward truth, peace, and justice.
Transitional Justice and the Struggle against Impunity: Lessons for Mexico from Latin America
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame
Mexico City, October 21–22, 2016
Santa Fe Auditorium, CIDE
Day I—Friday, October 21
Introductory remarks
9:00 – 9:30 am
Welcome by CIDE and Kellogg leaders
Co-organizer Guillermo Trejo (University of Notre Dame) explains the conference rationale and objectives
What is transitional justice? The search for truth and justice
9:30 – 11:15 am
Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of Law, and author of The Pinochet Effect: Transitional Justice in an Age of Human Rights
Patrick Ball, Director of Research, Human Rights Data Analysis Group and consultant to multiple truth commissions around the world, including Guatemala and Peru
Each presenter has 40 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of Q & A
Coffee Break 11:15 – 11:30 am
Do countries that adopt transitional justice mechanisms have less human rights violations and lower levels of criminal violence?
11:30 – 1:15 pm
Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford and coauthor of Transitional Justice in Balance
Guillermo Trejo & Juan Albarracín. Trejo is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and author of Popular Movements in Autocracies: Religion, Repression, and Indigenous Collective Action in Mexico. Albarracín is a PhD student at the University of Notre Dame working on criminal violence in Brazil.
Each presenter has 40 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of Q & A
Lunch at CIDE, 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Peru: A rapid and simultaneous process of truth and justice
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Félix Reátegui, Professor of Sociology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú; Director of the editorial committee and responsible for the final draft of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report
Gloria Cano, Lawyer and long-term human rights defender, Executive Director, Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH)
Each presenter has 45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q & A
Day II—Saturday, October 22
Guatemala: A hybrid process of truth and justice
9:00 – 11:00 am
Carlos Beristain, Editor of the Recovery of Historical Memory (Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica or REMHI) project’s report “Guatemala: ¡Nunca Más!” (“Never Again!”) and member of the group of international advisors (GIEI) on the investigation of the forced disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico
Anabella Sibrián, Human rights defender and representative in Central America for the Plataforma Internacional Contra la Impunidad
Each presenter has 45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q & A
Coffee Break 11:00 – 11:15 am
Colombia: Searching for truth and justice in the midst of violence
11:15 – 1:15 pm
Luis Carlos Sánchez Díaz, senior researcher and director of the reparations unit at Colombia’s National Center for Historical Memory; member of the research team that produced the report “¡Basta ya! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad” (“Enough, Colombia! Memories of War and Dignity”)
María Camila Moreno, Representative, International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in Colombia
Each presenter has 45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q & A
Lunch at CIDE, 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Mexico: Transitional justice and the struggle against impunity
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Mariclaire Acosta, Director of Mexico’s Freedom House Office, long-time human rights defender and founder of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights
Representative of the movement of families of the disappeared (TBC)
Edna Jaime, Director, México Evalúa; former director, Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo A.C. (CIDAC); and coauthor of A la puerta de la ley: El estado de derecho en México (The Rule of Law in Mexico)
Msgr. Carlos Garfias, Archbishop of Acapulco and a leading voice in Acapulco’s peace movement
José Antonio Caballero, Co-organizer and Professor of Law at CIDE, author of El debido proceso en América Latina. Una aproximación desde la jurisprudencia latinoamericana
Each presenter has 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of discussion
Concluding remarks and discussion
5:00 – 5:30 pm
Transitional Justice and the Struggle against Impunity: Lessons for Mexico from Latin America
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame
Mexico City, October 21–22, 2016
Santa Fe Auditorium, CIDE
Biographies
Mariclaire Acosta
Acosta, a sociologist and human rights practitioner, is an expert in human rights, democracy, transitional justice, the rule of law, and civil society.
She has been involved in a variety of organizations focusing on human rights in Mexico, serving as the founding president and former director of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights; the director for the Americas, International Center for Transitional Justice; special adviser to the secretary general of the Organization of American States on civil society affairs; and the special ambassador and deputy secretary for human rights and democracy at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A former Kellogg Institute for International Studies visiting fellow, she studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Currently she is the director of the Mexican office of Freedom House and serves on the Advisory Council of the National Commission on Human Rights, the Consultative Assembly of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, and the Board of Trustees of the Trust for Voluntary Funds of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Juan Albarracín
Albarracín, whose work focuses on criminal violence in Latin America, is conducting extensive research on the links between criminal violence and electoral politics in Brazil. In collaboration with Guillermo Trejo and Lucía Tiscornia, Albarracín is also working on a book on transitional justice and violence in Latin America.
He is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a Kellogg Institute PhD fellow. He holds a master’s in comparative politics from the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Patrick Ball
Ball is well known as an expert in the use of statistical techniques for the recollection and analysis of information about grave human rights violations. He has been the advisor for numerous truth commissions, civil society organizations, international tribunes, and United Nations missions in countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Peru, and South Africa, among others. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan.
Ball has provided testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; technical assistance to the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court; testimony before Guatemala’s Supreme Court in the case against General José Efraín Ríos Montt (2013); and testimony in the case against the former president of Chad (2015).
He now serves as the research director for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.
Carlos Beristain
Beristain is a physician, psychologist, and specialist in the comprehensive care of victims of human rights violations and their relatives. He has written numerous articles on the subject.
Beristain coordinated the influential report “Guatemala: Never again!” In Colombia, he worked with victims of the internal armed conflict; in Peru, Paraguay, and Ecuador, he worked with each country’s truth commissions; and in the Sahara with the victims and the relatives of the disappeared. He has appeared as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court in six cases of massacres, disappearances, and torture, and he was a member of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the case of the disappearance of 43 students from the “Raúl Isidro Burgos” Rural Teachers College in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico.
José Antonio Caballero
Caballero specializes in the administration and procurement of justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, and legal analysis. The author of numerous articles and books on these subjects, he holds a doctorate in law from the University of Navarra. He is the author of El debido proceso en América Latina. Una aproximación desde la jurisprudencia latinoamericana.
Currently, he is a research professor in the Legal Studies Division at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económica (CIDE).
Gloria Cano
Cano, a human rights lawyer, is well known for defending and winning the freedom of people unjustly accused of terrorism. She has led extradition cases, the trial and sentencing of Alberto Fujimori for crimes against humanity, and the sentencing of presidential advisor and Peruvian intelligence services head Vladimiro Montesinos as well as other military leaders.
Today, Cano is the executive director of the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (Pro Human Rights Association or APRODEH) and vice president of the International Federation of Human Rights based in Paris.
Edgar Cortez
A prominent human rights defender, Cortez has been director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Centro Prodh) (1998–04) and executive director of the National Network of Human Rights Organizations, which encompasses more than 70 human rights organizations from all over Mexico (2004–10).
Currently, he is a member of the Mexican Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, where he leads the organization’s work on citizen security and justice. Cortez is also a member of the executive board of a state initiative that provides protection for human rights defenders and journalists facing threats to their lives.
Monsignor Carlos Garfias Merlos
Msgr. Merlos, the archbishop of Acapulco since 2010, was ordained a priest on November 23, 1975 and named bishop of Altamirano City in 1996 and bishop of Netzahualcóyotl City in 2003. He holds a doctorate in psychology and spirituality from Intercontinental University and has served as a professor in the Morelia Seminary.
As archbishop, Msgr. Merlos has played a fundamental role in accompanying victims of organized crime and has been one of the principal leaders in the movement for peace in Acapulco.
Edna Jaime
Edna Jaime specializes in applied research on public policy, particularly on subjects such as security, corruption, and political economy. Previously, she was the director of Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo (Center for Development Research or CIDAC), where she coauthored numerous books. She holds a degree in political science from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
Jaime is currently the general director of México Evalúa—one of Mexico’s most influential think tanks—as well as a columnist for the Mexican newspaper El Universal.
María Camila Moreno
Moreno is an expert on collective rights and human rights policy with an emphasis on marginalized populations, refugees, internal displacement, and the rights of indigenous peoples. An anthropologist, she studied land use management at the University of Havana.
Her experience includes working in public institutions such as the offices of the president, the ombudsman, and the public prosecutor of Colombia and in international agencies such as the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, the Swedish Agency for International Development, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Currently, she serves as the director of the Colombia office of the International Center for Transitional Justice.
Leigh Payne
Payne, a leading political sociologist, has written extensively on human rights and transitional justice in Latin America, with a particular focus on confessions by perpetrators of serious human rights violations, amnesty laws, and trials for crimes against humanity. Payne is also cofounder of the Transitional Justice Database Collaborative, which is the most extensive data base on transitional justice in the world. A former Kellogg Institute for International Studies visiting fellow, she holds a PhD in political science from Yale University.
Payne is currently professor of sociology and Latin American studies at the University of Oxford.
Félix Reátegui
Reátegui, a sociologist, is a transitional justice expert who has written and edited numerous articles on the subject. He was the director of the editorial committee and responsible for the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru. Recently, he served as senior associate of the Truth and Justice Program of the International Center for Transitional Justice.
A graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Reátegui is currently advisor to the university’s Institute of Democracy and Human Rights, where he was previously research coordinator.
Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Roht-Arriaza is a lawyer known for her expertise on issues of transitional justice, international humanitarian rights, international criminal rights, international human rights law, and the rule of law, and she has written widely on these topics. Her experience includes research in Botswana, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala. She holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Roht-Arriaza is currently Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and serves as president of the Board of the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF).
Luis Carlos Sánchez Díaz
Sánchez Díaz is a historian and political scientist who has been part of Colombia’s Historical Memory Group since 2007. As a researcher at the National Center for Historical Memory, he was part of the research team that produced the influential report “¡Basta ya! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad” (“Enough, Colombia! Memories of War and Dignity”). His work has centered on two areas: social demands for historical memory and the relationship between justice, conflict and historical memory in Colombia. He holds a masters’ degree in philosophy from the Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, Colombia.
Sánchez Díaz is currently a senior researcher at Colombia’s National Center for Historical Memory, where he is director of the reparations unit.
Anabella Sibrián
Sibrián has been a defender of human rights since 1992, when she was a volunteer in the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala, directed by Bishop Juan Gerardi. Since then, she has worked with both national and international human rights organizations.
Currently, she is the Central American representative for the International Platform Against Impunity, an alliance whose priorities include protecting human rights defenders, supporting initiatives to strengthen justice, and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples threatened or violated by corporate interests.
Guillermo Trejo
Trejo is the author of numerous books and articles analyzing the dynamics of repression and political violence in indigenous regions of Mexico and, most recently, studying the link between politics, drug trafficking, and organized crime in Mexico. He is currently writing a book about transitional justice and criminal violence in Latin America. A contributor to the international newspaper El País, heholds a PhD from the University of Chicago.
Trejo is associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.