Existing memory studies literature has tended to focus on commemorative sites and dates while transitional justice scholarship has primarily centered on truth commissions, trials, and reparations. This book explores the interaction between memory and transitional justice and develops a theoretical framework for bringing these two fields of study together through the concept of critical junctures. Focusing on post-dictatorship Argentina and Uruguay, Francesca Lessa uses critical junctures to track and explain moments of change. She traces and analyzes across time the dynamic evolution of and shifts in transitional justice policies and the emergence and replacement of dominant memory narratives in the context of enduring struggles for justice and against impunity.

Through various lenses and theoretical approaches, this book explores the contested experiences, meanings, realms, goals, and challenges associated with the construction, preservation, and transmission of the memories of state repression in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. The book both illuminates and questions the politics of memory that have been unfolding in these countries over the past three decades. It is one of few volumes written in English to be dedicated specifically to the study of the memory of state terrorism in the Southern Cone. Its contributors, both recognized and emerging scholars, come from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

This interdisciplinary study explores the interaction between memory and transitional justice in post-dictatorship Argentina and Uruguay and develops a theoretical framework for bringing these two fields of study together through the concept of critical junctures.

This interdisciplinary study explores the interaction between memory and transitional justice in post-dictatorship Argentina and Uruguay and develops a theoretical framework for bringing these two fields of study together through the concept of critical junctures.

This edited volume brings together well-established and emerging scholars of transitional justice to discuss the persistence of amnesty in the age of human rights accountability. The volume attempts to reframe debates, moving beyond the limited approaches of truth versus justice or stability versus accountability in which many of these issues have been cast in the existing scholarship. The theoretical and empirical contributions in this edited book offer new ways of understanding and tackling the enduring persistence of amnesty in the age of accountability. Authors use social movement, ideational, legal, path dependent, qualitative case study, statistical, and cross-national approaches in their chapters. In addition to cross-national studies, the volume encompasses eleven country cases of amnesty for past human rights violations, some well-known and others with little scholarly or advocacy exposure: Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Uganda, and Uruguay. The volume goes beyond merely describing these case studies, but also considers what we learn from them in terms of overcoming impunity and promoting accountability to contribute to improvements in human rights and democracy.

Through various lenses and theoretical approaches, this book explores the contested experiences, meanings, realms, goals, and challenges associated with the construction, preservation, and transmission of the memories of state repression in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.

Stories of transnational terror and justice illuminate the past and present of South America’s struggles for human rights   “Outstanding. . . . An Olympian view of the Condor system.�—Philip Chrimes, International Affairs   Through the voices of survivors and witnesses, human rights activists, judicial actors, journalists, and historians, Francesca Lessa unravels the secrets of transnational repression masterminded by South American dictators between 1969 and 1981. Under Operation Condor, their violent and oppressive regimes kidnapped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of exiles, or forcibly returned them to the countries from which they had fled. South America became a zone of terror for those who were targeted, and of impunity for those who perpetuated the violence.   Lessa shows how networks of justice seekers gradually materialized and effectively transcended national borders to achieve justice for the victims of these horrors. Based on extensive fieldwork, archival research, trial ethnography, and over one hundred interviews, The Condor Trials explores South America’s past and present and sheds light on ongoing struggles for justice as its societies come to terms with the unparalleled atrocities of their not-so-distant pasts.

This edited volume brings together well-established and emerging scholars of transitional justice to discuss the persistence of amnesty in the age of human rights accountability. The volume attempts to reframe debates, moving beyond the limited approaches of truth versus justice or stability versus accountability in which many of these issues have been cast in the existing scholarship. The theoretical and empirical contributions in this edited book offer new ways of understanding and tackling the enduring persistence of amnesty in the age of accountability. Authors use social movement, ideational, legal, path dependent, qualitative case study, statistical, and cross-national approaches in their chapters. In addition to cross-national studies, the volume encompasses eleven country cases of amnesty for past human rights violations, some well-known and others with little scholarly or advocacy exposure: Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Uganda, and Uruguay. The volume goes beyond merely describing these case studies, but also considers what we learn from them in terms of overcoming impunity and promoting accountability to contribute to improvements in human rights and democracy.