Judgments delivered in Argentina are now available in English

The Secretariat of Human Rights under the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has translated excerpts from relevant judgments relating to the trial of those responsible for the crimes committed during the last military dictatorship (which took place in Argentina between 1976 and 1983). Most interestingly, the selection takes note of the jurisprudence produced by different Argentinean courts in relation to the possible qualification of the facts under the legal concept of genocide. This is of particular significance, as the development of jurisprudence (which is now more than 15 years old in Argentina) did not receive much international discussion outside of the Spanish-speaking world, particularly due to the unavailability of English-language material.

Much of Argentina’s jurisprudence on the subject has already been used in Bengali and Colombian courts. However, with the present selection (which also includes current cases beyond those that were available at the time), the arguments developed in Argentine courts can be incorporated into many other debates in courts, academic frameworks or policy spaces around the world.

Daniel Feierstein, genocide expert and PPT member, has brought this news to our attention. As is well known among those who are more familiar with this Tribunal, the reflection on genocide as a socio-legal category, that is, beyond the limits established by the 1948 Convention, was the subject of numerous works (starting precisely with the session on Argentina in 1980, up to the most recent one devoted to Colombian genocide) becoming a major reason in the PPT’s decision to update its Statute in 2018. In the text, crimes under the PPT’s jurisdiction were reformulated considering proposals to go beyond the limits of international law. This applies to the crime of genocide and other crimes addressed by the PPT, such as economic crimes and systemic crimes. It is not difficult to understand why, according to the PPT, the judgments of the Argentinean trials represent a strong push in the direction of a much-needed debate aimed at filling the gaps in existing national and international law.