Reseña

The fight against impunity for serious human rights violations has become one of the central objectives of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). Since its early rulings on cases of enforced disappearance, the Court has developed a strategy to combat impunity based on the pursuit of truth, justice, and reparation for victims. This has involved holding States accountable for violations of their international obligations and establishing increasingly specific duties to ensure investigation, remembrance, and reparation for those affected by serious human rights violations. State violence employed by various governments to maintain non-democratic regimes, along with the armed conflicts experienced by many countries in the region, has not only resulted in immense human suffering but also triggered a long-lasting democratic crisis. Transitions from authoritarian rule to democratic governance cannot be achieved by erasing the past or silencing the victims. Instead, these processes require the guarantee of victims’ rights and the provision of public explanations, including the recognition of abuses, identification of perpetrators, and the imposition of appropriate sanctions. Transitional justice models, which aim to balance the demands of justice and peace, find in the right to truth a fundamental principle guiding State and societal actions. As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has stated, "The right to truth forms one of the pillars of transitional justice mechanisms, understood as a variety of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to resolve the problems arising from a past of large-scale abuses—in order to hold those responsible accountable, serve justice, and achieve reconciliation. In such contexts, the pursuit of a complete, truthful, impartial, and socially shared account of past abuses is essential for rebuilding public trust in state institutions".