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This research received support from the National Science Foundation (Grant No 0961226) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant No AH/I500030/1) for the project entitled 'The Impact of Transitional Justice on Human Rights and Democracy'; from the Oak Foundation (Grant No OCAY-11-143) for the project 'Overcoming Amnesty in the Age of Accountability'; and from the John Fell OUP Research Fund (Grant No 101/552) for the project 'Accounting for Amnesty: Justice for Past Atrocity'. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Oak Foundation or the John Fell OUP Research Fund. The authors would like to acknowledge support from their fellow team members on this project, especially Emily Braid, Pierre-Louis Le Goff, Geoff Dancy and Kathryn Sikkink.
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Introduction
Impunity for human rights violations committed by past authoritarian rulers has been a thorny issue for transitional countries. While some countries have prosecuted perpetrators of past abuses, many more have opted to close the books and avoid accountability through the implementation of amnesty laws. A third pathway remains to be analysed: challenges to the amnesty laws that attempt to overcome impunity.
This article takes a unique look at legal challenges to amnesty laws that have led to their removal, erosion or validation. We consider not only the actors and factors necessary for successful challenges that weaken or annul amnesty laws but also the failed challenges that reinforce those laws.
To conduct our study, we rely on our database of amnesty laws enacted in 88 countries that have undergone a transition from authoritarian rule between 1970 and 2011. We then analyse the 63 amnesties for human rights violations committed by state agents that were enacted in 34 of these transitional countries (see Appendix 1 and 2), and the 161 processes, or challenges, by which the power of the laws has been validated, curtailed or overturned.
We find that the characteristics of four actors explain the variation in the level of success in challenging amnesties across countries: (i) civil society; (ii) international governmental and non-governmental agencies; (iii) domestic executives; and (iv) judicial leaders. We further...