LEGAL PATHS TO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DICTATORSHIP CRIMES : CHARTING THE LEGAL COURSES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THEIR RELEVANCE FOR BRAZIL International Human Rights Clinic Human Rights Program Harvard Law School Presented March 12, 2012, as a working paper at the “2 nd International Workshop on Transitional Justice” in Brasília organized by the 2 nd Chamber of Coordination and Revision of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Brazil Law, jurisprudence and facts current as of revisions on October 1, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 4 II. ONGOING IMPUNITY FOR CRIMES OF THE BRAZILIAN DICTATORSHIP .................. 11 III. THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL OBLIGATION TO INVESTIGATE AND PUNISH SERIOUS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ....................................................................................... 13 A. STATE OBLIGATION TO INVESTIGATE AND PUNISH SERIOUS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ............. 13 B. AMNESTY LAWS AS UNLAWFUL BARRIERS TO ACCOUNTABILITY ........................................................ 15 C. STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AS UNLAWFUL BARRIERS TO ACCOUNTABILITY ..................................... 17 D. THE GOMES LUND JUDGMENT OF THE INTER -AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS ..................... 19 IV. LEGAL MILESTONES IN ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CRIMES COMMITTED BY AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES IN LATIN AMERICA ....................................................................... 20 A. THE CONCEPT OF A PERMANENT CRIME IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE .................... 20 B. CHILE .......................................................................................................................................................... 23 1. Legal scheme .............................................................................................................................................. 23 2. Legal milestones to criminal accountability ................................................................................. 24 C. ARGENTINA ................................................................................................................................................ 28 1. Legal scheme .............................................................................................................................................. 28 2. Legal milestones to criminal accountability ................................................................................. 29 D. PERU ........................................................................................................................................................... 33 1. Legal scheme .............................................................................................................................................. 33 2. Legal milestones to criminal accountability ................................................................................. 34 E. URUGUAY .................................................................................................................................................... 39 1. Legal scheme .............................................................................................................................................. 39 2. Legal milestones to criminal accountability ................................................................................. 40 V. LATIN AMERICAN HIGH COURT REASONING CONCERNING AMNESTIES AND STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS FOR CRIMES BY AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES ..................... 45 A. JURISPRUDENTIAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING AMNESTY LAWS ........................................................... 45 1. Nullification of domestic amnesty laws for violating legal norms of superior status. 45 a) On the basis that Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgments are binding domestically .......................... 46 b) On the basis of international legal norms, particularly international human rights treaties in accordance with their authoritative interpretations by international courts ..................................................................................................... 47 c) On independent constitutional grounds ........................................................................................................................................... 49 2. Understanding amnesty laws to exclude serious human rights violations...................... 51 a) On the basis that permanent crimes extended past the period contemplated by the amnesty ............................. 51 b) On the basis that the crimes are not subject to amnesty or were not intended to be amnestied ......................... 53 B. JURISPRUDENTIAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND PERMANENT CRIMES 53 - 2 - 1. Finding that domestic crimes also constituting crimes against humanity under international law are not subject to statutes of limitations ........................................................... 54 a) On the basis of customary and jus cogens norms of international law .............................................................................. 55 b) On the basis of treaties ratified after the crimes began ............................................................................................................. 56 2. Applying the concept of a permanent crime ................................................................................. 58 a) Allowing prosecutions to proceed on the basis that statutes of limitations for the offenses had not expired 59 b) Applying changes in the criminal law without violating the principle of legality on the basis that the crime was ongoing ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 60 3. Finding that the statute of limitations for state crimes did not run during authoritarian rule ............................................................................................................................................. 61 VI. THE BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTION AND THE JUDGMENT IN ADPF 153 CAN AND MUST BE INTERPRETED AS CONSISTENT WITH THE INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATION TO INVESTIGATE AND PUNISH AFFIRMED IN GOMES LUND ................................................. 62 A. THE SUPREME FEDERAL TRIBUNAL ’S DECISION IN ADPF 153 .......................................................... 64 B. LEGAL AVENUES OPEN TO PROSECUTIONS FOR DICTATORSHIP CRIMES IN BRAZIL ......................... 65 1. Permanent crimes are prosecutable ................................................................................................ 65 a) Enforced disappearances (seqüestro) ............................................................................................................................................... 66 b) Conspiracy (quadrilha).............................................................................................................................................................................. 67 c) Hiding of corpses (ocultação de cadáver) ........................................................................................................................................ 67 2. Crimes occurring after August 15, 1979 are prosecutable ..................................................... 68 3. Conventionality review of the Amnesty Law renders all crimes of the Brazilian dictatorship prosecutable .............................................................................................................................. 68 a) Requirement of conventionality control of the Amnesty Law with respect to the American Convention on Human Rights ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 68 b) Supreme Federal Tribunal enforcement of the American Convention on Human Rights as authoritatively interpreted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights................................................................................................................. 70 C. OBLIGATIONS OF THE BRAZILIAN STATE TO EFFECTIVELY INVESTIGATE AND PUNISH CRIMES OF THE BRAZILIAN DICTATORSHIP IN LIGHT OF GOMES LUND ............................................................................ 72 D. OBLIGATION TO ACHIEVE FULL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CRIMES OF THE BRAZILIAN DICTATORSHIP 73 VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... 75 - 3 - I. INTRODUCTION “Brazil today lives out another page of hope in its history.” 1 - Anonymous, BRAZIL : NEVER AGAIN (Archdiocese of São Paulo, 1985). Brazil today is an outlier in Latin America. Over 25 years after its transition to democracy, it has not held military dictatorship-era (1964-1985) human rights violators criminally accountable for the grave abuses they perpetrated. The Amnesty Law ( Lei de Anistía ), enacted in 1979, has thus far dissuaded the prosecution of crimes perpetrated by agents of the Brazilian dictatorship, while other questions regarding accountability—such as statutes of limitations—also loom large in legal debates on transitional justice domestically. To date, this impunity has shrouded dictatorship crimes in Brazil and constituted a violation of well- established international law. Despite this overall