Boston College International and Comparative Law Review Volume 33 | Issue 1 Article 4 1-1-2010 Chasing Ghosts: Pursuing Retroactive Justice for Franco-Era Crimes Against Humanity Angela M. Guarino Follow this and additional works at: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Jurisdiction Commons Recommended Citation Angela M. Guarino, Chasing Ghosts: Pursuing Retroactive Justice for Franco-Era Crimes Against Humanity, 33 B.C. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 61 (2010), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr/vol33/iss1/4 This Notes is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHASING GHOSTS: PURSUING RETROACTIVE JUSTICE FOR FRANCO-ERA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Angela M. Guarino* Abstract: In October 2008, Judge Baltasar Garzón declared himself com- petent to open Spain’s first criminal investigation of Franco-era atrocities. His decision formally classified the 114,000 executions and thousands of forced disappearances that occurred during the Spanish Civil War and ensuing dictatorship as crimes against humanity. It also accused Francisco Franco and thirty-four of his generals and ministers of having committed these crimes. Throughout Spain’s transition to democracy and beyond, Spain has adhered to a “pact of forgetting,” formalized by a 1977 amnesty law, in which political leaders agreed that regime members would not be prosecuted for their acts.