The Impact of Human Rights Trials and Accountability: Insights from European, and Latin American Post-Conflict Societies

Abstract

In recent years, human rights trials have advanced after war, dictatorship and mass violence, investigating and prosecuting military officials, political leaders, and heads of state charged with responsibility for major human rights violations in European, and Latin American post-authoritarian and post-conflict societies. The analysis of the impact of accountability from a transregional perspective has social and political relevance since it allows us to identify differences and commonalities regarding the use of criminal law and its repercussion in local contexts. Also, dealing with a legacy of gross human rights violations after a transition from authoritarianism to democracy or from war to peace presents opportunities to enhance human rights but also complex challenges. This panel seeks to analyze the consequences, advances and difficulties of prosecuting perpetrators of mass atrocities at national and international level, with the goal of exploring different experiences in Europe and Latin America and offering transnational and comparative perspectives: What is the social and political impact of trials? When do they have positive effects, when (unintended) negative consequences on society, politics and democratic institutions? What improvements or detrimental effects are human rights prosecution having at local level for victims, perpetrators and society? Can criminal justice play a key role in redressing victims and attempting to overcome -at least partially- the damage caused by State violence? Bringing together contributions and case studies from two world regions will help to explore, how these accountability efforts and experiences impact on different political and institutional structures as well as on social perceptions and attitudes. Furthermore, we will examine whether the social scope of prosecutions plays an important role, not only for victims, but also for other parts of society. While giving an account of the impact and consequences of judicial accountability, we also consider their limitations.