Agents of Anti-Politics: Courts in Pinochet's Chile

Hilbink, Lisa

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511814822.005

Cited by 34 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…A self‐amnesty law was enacted in 1978 that precluded prosecution for crimes committed between 1973 and 1978, unless the cases were already in trial or had been convicted (Collins : 68). Courts, in compliance with the regime (Hilbink , ), were hesitant to pursue any investigation and readily applied amnesty to most cases or submitted them to military jurisdiction where amnesty was also automatically applied (Collins ). Nelson Caucoto, a prominent Chilean human rights lawyer, explains that in Chile “the defense of human rights took place mostly in the courts—which did not mean that the cases were solved promptly and successfully.” […] “The goal of human rights advocates was to keep the cases open […].” (DPLF : 4).…”

Section: Case Studies Of the Use Of Private Prosecution In Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…20 A self-amnesty law was enacted in 1978 that precluded prosecution for crimes committed between 1973 and 1978, unless the cases were already in trial or had been convicted (Collins 2010: 68). Courts, in compliance with the regime (Hilbink 2007(Hilbink , 2008, were 19 Interview with Nelson Caucoto, Santiago, Chile, July 27, 2009. 20 Collins (2009: 67) mentions that some few cases started through police investigations; however, "these tended to be Kafkaesque affairs where victims or potential witnesses were accused of terrorist crimes."…”

Section: Chilementioning

confidence: 99%

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Human Rights Prosecutions and the Participation Rights of Victims in Latin America

Michel¹,

Sikkink²

2013

Law Soc Rev

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Since the 1980s, there has been a significant rise in domestic and international efforts to enforce individual criminal accountability for human rights violations through trials, but we still lack complete explanations for the emergence of this trend and the variation observed in the use of human rights prosecutions in the world. In this article, we examine the role that procedural law has had in allowing societal actors to influence in this rising trend for individual criminal accountability. We do this by focusing on participation rights granted to victims, such as private prosecution in criminal cases. Based on an exploration of an original database on human rights prosecutions in Latin America and fieldwork research in three countries, we argue that private prosecution is the key causal mechanism that allows societal actors to fight in domestic courts for individual criminal accountability for human rights violations.

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Section: Case Studies Of the Use Of Private Prosecution In Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Chilementioning

confidence: 99%

Human Rights Prosecutions and the Participation Rights of Victims in Latin America

Michel¹,

Sikkink²

2013

Law Soc Rev

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“…Outros, ainda, vão procurar mostrar que não existe apenas uma questão de defesa contra a oposição, mas uma ideia de "missão" de governos que não se encontram sob ameaça, mas que procuram traçar diretrizes específicas de desenvolvimento (SHAMBAYATI e KIRDIS, 2009). Por fim, há os que olham para o desfecho dos processos de adoção da revisão judicial para ver o que os juízes fizeram com esse poder, mostrando a influência das ideias positivistas sobre a percepção dos juízes acerca de seu próprio papel, fazendo-os agir e decidir de forma contrária às suas preferências políticas particulares (HILBINK, 2007(HILBINK, , 2008a 22 .…”

Section: As Abordagens De Cunho Institucionalista: As Regras E Formasunclassified

Abordagens teóricas na pesquisa empírica sobre o poder judiciário: diálogos, pontes, híbridos

Inatomi¹

2017

Política E Direito Na Suprema Corte Norte-Americana: Debates Teóricos E Estudos De Caso

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“…21 In 1978, the enactment of a self-amnesty law precluded prosecution for crimes committed during the crudest part of the dictatorship from 1973 to 1978, excluding cases that were already in trial or cases where defendants were already convicted (Collins 2010:68). Furthermore, in the Chilean criminal justice system, judges also acted as prosecutors (that is, the PPO was within the judiciary), which translated into stalled criminal investigations, the automatic application of the amnesty law to most cases, or the transfer of cases to military courts where usually the amnesty law was applied in an automatic fashion (Hilbink 2007(Hilbink , 2008Collins 2010).…”

Section: Chile: Producing Legal Momentummentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Rights Enforcement From Below: Private Actors and Prosecutorial Momentum in Latin America and Europe

Dancy

Michel

2015

Int Stud Q

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Over the last three decades, thousands of prosecutions for human rights abuses have progressed through domestic courts, a puzzling fact considering that state leaders have little incentive to punish their own agents. Previous studies have advanced rational-choice or sociological-institutionalist accounts of this phenomenon, emphasizing the role of political coalitions or regional cultures. Few, though, have recognized the local, private struggles that lie at the root of the trend toward domestic human rights enforcement. In this article, we develop a historical-institutionalist theory of normative change centered on the notion of "prosecutorial momentum." We contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents in Europe and Latin America results in large part from the cumulative efforts of victims and human rights lawyers utilizing their rights to private criminal prosecution. Using a new data set and mixed methods, we offer a systematic analysis of how rights to private criminal prosecution, when activated in response to a legacy of repression, helps set in motion sustained efforts to pursue domestic enforcement and compliance with international law.National leaders have little rational incentive to punish the very agents on whom they rely for coercion. Yet increasingly often, domestic courts across the world bring state agents to trial for human rights violations. Between 1970 and 2010, for example, more than 3,000 domestic human rights prosecutions were initiated, and this has resulted in moderate improvements to physical integrity rights protections (Kim and Sikkink 2010:956-58). 1 This is evidence of the global but decentralized enforcement of international law and norms (Sikkink 2011). How can we account for this rise in domestic efforts for criminal accountability of human rights violations?While the human rights and transitional justice literature points to numerous explanations, we build on recent research that highlights domestic institutions as an explanatory factor behind the rise of human rights accountability efforts. Top-down rationalist or sociological explanations attribute the rise of prosecutions either to the stable preferences of political coalitions or to static regional cultures. Instead, we advance an historical-institutionalist argument about gradual change (Pierson 2004; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Specifically, we contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents results in large part from victims and human rights lawyers' litigating at the domestic level. By creatively utilizing existing legal-institutional tools over time, these opportunistic actors produce sustained campaigns for human rights accountability.We are not the first to make the argument that individuals interacting with available institutions can promote human rights enforcement (Collins 2010;Sikkink 2011;Burt 2013;Michel and Sikkink 2013;Davis 2014;Gonzalez Ocantos 2014). In particular, Michel and Sikkink (2013) introduce the importance of victims' rights in criminal proce...

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Agents of Anti-Politics: Courts in Pinochet's Chile

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Human Rights Prosecutions and the Participation Rights of Victims in Latin America

Human Rights Prosecutions and the Participation Rights of Victims in Latin America

Abordagens teóricas na pesquisa empírica sobre o poder judiciário: diálogos, pontes, híbridos

Human Rights Enforcement From Below: Private Actors and Prosecutorial Momentum in Latin America and Europe

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