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The Weight of the Continuous Past: Transitional (In)Justice and Impunity States in Central America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2018

Rachel E. Bowen
Rachel E. Bowen*
Affiliation:
Associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University.
*
bowen.208@osu.edu
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Abstract

Central America’s Northern Triangle is infamous for high levels of violent crime and human rights abuses, producing “impunity states” in which violence typically goes unpunished. That violence reflects the broader impunity or “transitional injustice” that has persisted since the peace accords and transitions to democracy of the 1980s and 1990s. Several “posttransitional” trials for past human rights violations in recent years in Guatemala were made possible by institutional strengthening efforts in the prosecutorial agency, led by a unique United Nations commission. Significant progress away from broad impunity may also be seen in the 2015 “Guatemalan Spring,” in which a sitting president was forced to resign and submit to prosecution in connection with a corruption scandal. Comparisons of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras suggest that institutional strengthening is necessary before “posttransitional justice,” or an end to impunity more generally, can be possible.

Keywords

Central Americajudicial independencejustice sector reformrule of lawtransitional justiceimpunity
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 126 - 147
Copyright
© 2019 University of Miami 

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