The proposed paper investigates the way lawsuits are initiated or actively lobbied by civil society organisations in order to influence the political narrative of the past in the case of Argentina. The starting point of the analysis is the concept of “politics of the past” as a contested field in which different political actors engage in a hegemonic struggle over the meaning of the past (that is the definition of victims and perpetrators, conflict causes and solutions etc.) in order to justify political measures. In this context, lawsuits are not simply a way of punishing perpetrators or bringing justice to victims, but they also have to be understood as a means to influence the political narratives of the past. Law differs from other means of politics of the past (such as truth commissions, memorials etc.) because possesses relational autonomy vis-à-vis the social sphere and is hence more open for social actors that want to put forward interpretations of the past that challenge the hegemonic narrative. The Argentinian case is a case par excellence to scrutinise how the law is used by civil society actors to engage in struggles over the meaning of the past. In this vein, the paper reconstructs the different phases of the legal struggle: whereas in the 1990s international human rights norms were invoked to challenge the impunity laws and the then hegemonic political discourse that the past should be forgotten (leading to the construction of the human right to truth) newer lawsuits are initiated to challenge the prevailing theory of the “two demons” and try to shed light on the economic dimensions of the dictatorship and the transition (e.g. the case against Etchecolatz). The case study is based on field research and interviews with human rights organisations and legal practitioners.
