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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2017
I want to thank Professor Avelino León Steffens of the University of Chile and Jack O'Farrell of Dublin City University for providing me with certain research material. All views expressed, and translations made, are my responsibility alone.
1 “During the military regime, the judiciary failed to protect adequately persons seeking redress. The judiciary also appeared to condone the abuses of the military and created doubt that [it] would guard personal rights and liberties.” Robert G. Vaughn, Proposals for Judicial Reform in Chile, 16 Fordham Int'l L.J. 577, 583–84 (1993).
2 Letelier v. Chile, 488 F.Supp. 665, 673 (D.D.C. 1980).
3 See 28 U.S.C. §§1330, 1602–1611 (1988).
4 Letelier v. Chile, 567 F.Supp. 1490 (S.D.N.Y.), 575 F.Supp. 1217 (S.D.N.Y. 1983).
5 Letelier v. Chile, 748 F.2d 795 (2d Cir. 1984).
6 See First Nat'l City Bank v. Banco para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611 (1983).
7 Rol. No. 3-78.
8 See Robert J. Quinn, Will the Rule of Law End? Challenging Grants of Amnesty for the Human Rights Violations of a Prior Regime: Chile's New Model, 62 Fordham L. Rev. 905 (1994).
9 Decree Law No. 2191 (Apr. 18, 1978), Diario Oficial, No. 30,042, Apr. 19, 1978.
10 Rol. No. 30.174-94.
11 Cód. Pen. Art. 42.2.
12 Id., Art. 391.1.
13 Report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (1991).
14 Decision of May 23, 1995, Rol. No. 31.083.
15 See 748 F.2d 795 (2d Cir. 1984).
16 On June 23, 1995, a court in Rome sentenced Contreras in absentia to 20 years in prison for an October 1975 attack that seriously injured former Chilean Vice President Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Ana Fresno, who were living in exile in Italy. Retired General Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, another high-level DINA official, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the attack. Chilean Foreign Minister José Miguel Insulza said that Contreras could not be extradited to Italy until after his sentence in Chile is served. Et. Diario-La Prensa, June 25, 1995, at 1.
17 Letelier, 488 F.Supp. 665, 673 (D.D.C. 1980).
18 “Deference to sovereign acts of foreign states may be appropriate where the customary rules are obscure and difficult to apply, but where they are not, municipal courts should apply them even if that means a rebuff to the foreign state in question.” Oscar Schachter, International Law in Theory and Practice 244 (1991).
19 Letelier, 567 F.Supp. 1490 (S.D.N.Y.), 575 F.Supp. 1217 (S.D.N.Y. 1983).
20 Letelier, 748 F.2d 795 (2d Cir. 1984).
21 See Socobelge v. Greece, Judgment of Apr. 30, 1951, Trib. pr. inst. Brussels, 1953 Sirey IV, at 1, 47 AJIL 508 (1953).
22 Report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, supra note 13; Jorge Correa, Dealing with Past Human Rights Violations: The Chilean Case After Dictatorship, 67 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1455 (1992).
23 See Quinn, supra note 8, at 905–06:
Chilean Decree Law No. 2191 is a blanket amnesty law covering acts committed during the first five years of military rule, from September 11, 1973, the date of the military coup, through March 10, 1978. During that period, agents of the Chilean government killed over 2115 civilians. Thousands more had property taken or destroyed, were detained, beaten and tortured, or forced into exile.
Quinn adds in a footnote that “a total of 3877 confirmed or unresolved cases of death or disappearances were officially recorded between September 1973 and March 1990.” Id. at 906 n.5.
24 According to Quinn, id. at 935:
A state [c]ommits a distinct violation of its treaty obligations by applying amnesty provisions that obstruct fair hearings or other remedies after the state has become a party to the American Convention [on Human Rights] (or, by analogy, the International Covenant [on Civil and Political Rights]), at least in so far as the amnesty decree precludes civil claims for remedy against state agents or the state itself. Such a violation is presenuy actionable, even if the underlying substantive violations occurred before the treaty was in effect with respect to the offending state. (Emphasis added)
See also Vaughn, supra note 1, at 587: “The Commission on Truth and Reconciliation found that [the closing of investigations as well as cases was] antithetical to the general provisions of the criminal code that required investigations prior to the termination of criminal action even on the grounds of amnesty” (emphasis added).
25 “The enforcement of international humanitarian law cannot depend on international tribunals alone. They will never be a substitute for national courts.” Theodor Meron, International Criminalization of Internal Atrocities, 89 AJIL 554, 555 (1995).
26 See Bolivia: A historic ruling against impunity, Rev. Int'l Comm'n Jurists, Dec. 1993, at 1; Remember Paraguay? It Is Rejoining The World, N.Y. Times, Dec. 24, 1992, at 1 (stating that “[n]ever in Paraguayan history has a soldier gone before civilian justice …”). See also Argentine Federal Appeals Court decision of March 20, 1995, stating that the Government had the obligation to disclose the fate of all those who had “disappeared” in the “dirty war” of the 1970s and 1980s: “[O]btaining the lists of the victims of such acts is a duty which the Court has an obligation to fulfil in the exercise of its jurisdiction.” El Derecho, July 19, 1995, at 5, 6 (CFed. 1995). This decision followed from the dramatic public confessions of senior military officers. Argentina purges “dirty war” guilt, Guardian, Apr. 28, 1995, at 10. The Government of Peru, in contrast, by promulgating Law No. 26,479 (the Amnesty Law), has sought to emulate its neighbors' past errors. See Human Rights Watch/Americas, Peru—The Two Faces of Justice 40 (1995).
27 See Chilean general defies arrest by “Marxist scum,” Independent, June 1, 1995, at 8; El Diario-La Prensa, Oct. 23, 1995, at 1 (General Contreras finally entered a civilian prison on October 21, 1995); News Service (Amnesty International), Nov. 23, 1995, at 2 (stating that “[t]he moves to close cases come after military protest following the imprisonment of General Manuel Contreras and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza,” and that “[t]hree legislative proposals on this matter stand before the Senate, the latest of which, the Figueroa-Otero Bill, would close all legal proceedings against perpetrators of human rights violations in the 1973–1978 period.”). On a more positive note, Enrique Arancibia Clavel, a former agent of DINA, was recently arrested in Argentina. Clavel was allegedly involved in the assassination of the former Chilean Chief of Staff, General Carlos Prats, who opposed the 1973 military coup, and his wife, in a car bomb explosion in Buenos Aires in 1974. It has been alleged that the killing of General Prats was part of Operation Condor, in which secret police in Argentina and Chile cooperated in eliminating opponents of their respective military regimes. Fin. Times (London), Jan. 24, 1996, at 8.