Notes from the Field: Monitoring Human Rights Trials: Information Strategies Developed in Argentina’s Transitional Justice Process

Although the role of local Human Rights Organizations (HROs) has attracted some attention in the transitional justice literature, this note from the field examines an under-studied HRO strategy: the production and systematization of information. In particular, it focuses on the Center for Legal and Social Studies’ (CELS) efforts to promote accountability for the gross human rights violations committed during Argentina’s last period of military rule (1976–1983). It argues that the production and systematization of information is foundational for transitional justice advocacy, and CELS’ work has influenced Argentina’s transitional justice processes and the broader struggle for accountability. The main focus of the note is the use of information for post-transition legal accountability, the purpose of which is to set judging standards and point out difficulties in prosecuting systematic human rights violations. This is addressed by describing a specific information strategy implemented by CELS. This information deals with the status of trials for past human rights violations ongoing throughout Argentina. Introduction Argentina’s transitional justice experience for the gross human rights violations committed during its last period of military rule (1976–83) Lorena Balardini 234 Transitional Justice Review, Vol.1, Iss.4, 2016, 233-261 has been extensively explored by scholars and has often been considered “exceptional” for several reasons. First, Argentina is the only country in Latin America, and one of the few in the world, where military high commanders were prosecuted early in the transition. Second, in the three decades following the transition, the country has implemented what can be considered “a full menu” of transitional justice mechanisms: a truth commission, restitution of rights, reparations, criminal and ‘truth’ trials, and lustration. To explain the existence of such a remarkable transitional justice approach, scholars have often referred to the important role of local human rights organizations (HROs), and have studied their political actions, such as denunciations and mobilization both 1 See, among others, Carlos Nino, Radical Evil on Trial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) and Carlos Acuña and Catalina Smulovitz, ¡Ni olvido ni perdón? Derechos Humanos y tensiones cívico-militares en la transición argentina (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, 1991). 2 Catalina Smulovitz, “The Past Is Never Dead: Accountability and Justice for Past Human Rights Violations in Argentina” in Vesselin Popovski and Mónica Serrano, eds., After Oppression: Transitional Justice in Latin America and Eastern Europe (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2012). 235 Monitoring Human Rights Trials Transitional Justice Review, Vol.1, Iss.4, 2016, 233-261 domestically and transnationally. 3 They also have employed legal strategies, lodging cases in local and regional courts. This note from the field analyzes a different strategy implemented by Argentine HROs, namely the production and systematization of information. This underappreciated activity is foundational, and has influenced Argentina’s transitional justice process and the broader struggle for accountability. Although the production of information is a central element of transitional justice processes, it has not received adequate attention. Existing studies focus on how HROs use information to create awareness and to publicly 3 For only a partial list of this literature, see Acuña and Smulovitz 1991; Alison Brysk, “From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System, and Human Rights in Argentina,” Comparative Political Studies 26.3 (1993): 259-85; Alison Brysk, The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina: Protest, Change and Democratization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); Alyson Brisk, “The Politics of Measurement: Counting the Disappeared in Argentina,” Human Rights Quarterly 16.4 (1994) 676-92; Alison Brysk, ed., Globalization and Human Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Elizabeth Jelin, “La política de la memoria: el movimiento de derechos humanos y la construcción democrática en la Argentina” in Carlos Acuña et al., eds., Juicios, castigos y memorias. Derechos humanos y justicia en la política argentina (Buenos Aires: Editores Nueva Visión, 1995); Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998). 4 See, for example, Jo-Marie Burt, “The New Accountability Agenda in Latin America: The Promise and Perils of Human Rights Prosecutions” in Katherine Hite and Mark Ungar, eds., Sustaining Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies from Latin America (Washington DC and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press and the John Hopkins University Press, 2012); Cath Collins, Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights in Chile and El Salvador (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2010); Par Engstrom and Gabriel Pereira, “From Amnesty to Accountability: The Ebb and Flow in the Search for Justice in Argentina,” in Francesca Lessa and Leigh Payne, eds., Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2011). Lorena Balardini 236 Transitional Justice Review, Vol.1, Iss.4, 2016, 233-261 denounce the crimes to obtain condemnation. Yet few studies analyze the way HROs use it to achieve accountability. Here, I focus on HROs’ data-collection strategies, considered in the context of cooperation and tension between them and state agencies. I argue that data collection first and systematization afterwards were both crucial information strategies in the struggle for the recognition of human rights offences and for them to be considered in the framework of transitional justice mechanisms. In addition, implementing such strategies led to the emergence of an “information policy” that has been an important contribution of the HROs to the transitional justice process. In particular, it allowed human rights violations to be publicly recognized, and to turn them into criminal cases. Moreover, this note focuses on the uses of information for post-transition legal accountability, the purpose of which is to set judicial standards and point out gaps and difficulties in prosecuting gross human rights violations. This is addressed by describing a specific information strategy implemented by one HRO: the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS for its Spanish acronym). The information produced by CELS deals with the status of trials for past human rights violations ongoing throughout the country. This information strategy corresponds to the current stage of the transitional justice process in Argentina, which the literature has characterized as “post-transition” or “late justice.” Its antecedent is information on crimes, victims, and 5 See Brysk, “The Politics of Measurement”; Shayne Weyker, “The Ironies of Information Technology” in Alison Brysk ed., Globalization and Human Rights (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002); Richard Claude and Thomas Jabine, “Exploring Human Rights Issues with Statistics” in Richard Claude and Thomas Jabine, eds., Human Rights and Statistics: Getting the Record Straight (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). 6 Post-transitional justice focuses on the continued legal pursuit of justice for past human rights violations in order to dismantle amnesty provisions that prevented criminal judgment. See Collins 2010: 2-3. Among the external phenomena that influenced this process is progress in international human rights law; for further 237 Monitoring Human Rights Trials Transitional Justice Review, Vol.1, Iss.4, 2016, 233-261 perpetrators produced by HROs during the dictatorship and the transition. Information Strategies in Transitional Justice Processes This note’s focus is on a particular kind of information, which has been systematized through a series of operations. Michel Foucault defined systematization as a technique for the standardization of records that enables correlating different elements of a phenomenon elaborating series and patterns, and setting standards. He attributes decisive importance in this process to the so-called “small techniques” of notation, registration, and creation of records. Such documentary techniques allow the creation of a “case,” a set of circumstances that qualify as facts. This note presents a thorough description of these “small techniques” deployed by Argentine HROs in the post-transition period. detail see Leonardo Filippini, “Criminal Prosecution in the Search for Justice,” in CELS and ICTJ, eds., Making Justice: Further Discussions on the Prosecution of Crimes against Humanity in Argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, 2011). Other external phenomena include the “Pinochet effect,” which refers to the impact of the detention of Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 in London, and the cases filed overseas against Argentine military personnel based upon universal jurisdiction. See Naomi Roht-Arriaza, The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005) and Lorena Balardini, “Argentina: the Regional Protagonist,” in Elin Skaar, Cath Collins and Jemima Garcia-Godos, eds., Transitional Justice in Latin America: The Uneven Road from Impunity towards Accountability (London: Routledge, forthcoming). In this note, I consider Argentina’s posttransitional justice period to start with the first judicial decision declaring the amnesty laws unconstitutional in 2001 in the landmark “Simón” case filed by CELS and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. The Supreme Court completely dismantled the juridical effects of amnesty through its final 2005 ruling in the