Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Roht-Arriaza, Naomi --- "Guatemala: Lessons for transitional justice" [2017] ELECD 791; in Lawther, Cheryl; Moffett, Luke; Jacobs, Dov (eds), "Research Handbook on Transitional Justice" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 445

Book Title: Research Handbook on Transitional Justice

Editor(s): Lawther, Cheryl; Moffett, Luke; Jacobs, Dov

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955307

Section: Chapter 22

Section Title: Guatemala: Lessons for transitional justice

Author(s): Roht-Arriaza, Naomi

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

Guatemala would seem to be the poster child for transitional justice. After the peace process itself and the resulting accords came the creation of not one but two truth commissions, a program of reparations and prosecutions for crimes arising from the period of internal armed conflict, including for forced disappearances, massacres and genocide. Guatemala was the first country to put its own former head of state, José Efrain R'os Montt, on trial for genocide, and the first to try crimes of wartime sexual slavery in its own courts. The last decades have also featured attempts at institutional reform, including changes in the judiciary and security forces, and constitutional and governance reform. This chapter describes and evaluates those efforts and the lessons they provide regarding the possibilities, pitfalls and limits to transitional justice. Guatemala; truth-seeking; reparations; prosecutions; guarantees of non-repetition