Understanding why people are tortured or disappeared requires, at a minimum, stepping back and getting up close—stepping back to identify key facts and trends, getting up close to hear personal experiences of abuse. In this sense, description is a first step to prevention. Any attempt to explain and prevent human rights violations must be based on an accurate understanding of past and ongoing abuses. Which rights have been violated in the region? How have these abuses changed over time? Are there significant cross-national differences? How does Latin America compare to other world regions? This chapter examines these questions, by...

Human rights violations do not just happen. They reflect particular choices made by specific individuals. Despite their frequency, both in Latin America and around the world, these choices can appear quite puzzling. It is not altogether clear why human rights abuses are even committed, especially in the face of intense international and domestic scrutiny. What is it that leads certain individuals to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering on others? Why do neighbors and former classmates torture and sexually abuse people they used to run into at their local grocer? How do people decide to mutilate bodies or throw them from...

When human rights violations occur, people need forums where they can go to demand justice. Domestic legal courts and political institutions, however, often fail to provide human rights accountability. Perpetrators go unpunished, victims are not compensated, and the truth remains untold. Fortunately, in situations where human rights victims or activists have exhausted all domestic remedies, they can turn to international and regional forums. Internationally, the UN system provides several interlocking mechanisms for upholding human rights. Regionally, the inter-American human rights system offers a range of possibilities for those seeking protection. Together, international and regional institutions act as a global safety...

Latin America has been almost revolutionized since the dark episodes of human rights abuse that characterized the Cold War. Despite the numerous and egregious violations that persist, it is difficult to exaggerate the changes that have occurred. Many countries have undergone transitions to democracy, and the overall level and intensity of abuses is incomparable with that of earlier decades.

Such changes would not have been possible without transnational advocacy networks (TANs). In contemporary politics, TANs are considered the key engines of human rights change. These networks include a broad range of actors: international and regional organizations like those discussed in...

Across Latin America, endemic human rights abuses gave way to reform in the last two decades of the twentieth century. While violations continued to occur, human rights conditions also improved markedly by the new millennium. A thirty-year civil war ended in Guatemala and peace agreements were concluded in Central America. Further south, Uruguay went from having the highest per capita rate of political imprisonment anywhere in the world to one of the best human rights records in the developing world. In some cases, reforms have included truth commissions and human rights trials, discussed in the next chapter. Given the magnitude...

Societies undergoing democratization and post-conflict reconstruction must confront past human rights abuses sooner or later. Who was responsible for violations under the old regime, and who should be held accountable now? Should truth be pursued at all costs, even if it threatens a new and perhaps fragile stability? Can violators be punished without sacrificing democracy? Can human rights and democracy thrive in the absence of national reconciliation? In the aftermath of a long period of egregious violations, it is tempting to assume that human rights issues are a thing of the past. But victims and their relatives are unlikely to...

George Santayana, the philosopher and writer, famously remarked at the turn of the twentieth century that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If Santanaya was right, confronting past human rights atrocities is not simply a matter of justice. It may be part of preventing future abuses. Latin Americans realized this in the 1980s and 1990s when they echoed the words proclaimed decades earlier, after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed: Nunca Más, Never Again. Noble intentions aside, it remains unclear just how much the region has overcome the human rights legacies of the past....