[1] When systematic repression followed the March 1976 coup, which brought the dictatorship of General Jorge Videla to power, Pérez Esquivel contributed to the formation and financing of the linkages between popularly based organizations to defend human rights in Argentina and support the families of the victims of the Dirty War.

The NGO Servicio Paz y Justicia ("Service, Peace and Justice Foundation", or SERPAJ), which he co-founded in 1974, and served as an instrument for the defense of human rights by promoting an international campaign to denounce the atrocities committed by the military regime.

He published Caminando Junto al Pueblo ("Walking Together with the People", 1995), in which he relates his experiences with nonviolence in Latin America, and he was appointed Professor of Peace and Human Rights Studies at the University of Buenos Aires in 1998.

[7] He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of the Esquel Police Department of training children into paramilitary squads, an operation that he compared to the creation of Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth.

"[9] Pérez Esquivel expressed himself regarding the 2013 election of Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, stating that as Provincial superior of Jesuits "he had lacked the sufficient courage shown by other Bishops to support our cause for human rights during the dictatorship.

[14] Esquivel's work[15] ranges from exhibitions to murals and monuments, including the 15 station Latin American Via Crucis (including a Lenten cloth "A new sky and a new land") made in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the conquest of America; Monument to Refugees, located in the Headquarters of the UNHCR in Switzerland; the Latin American Peoples Mural in the Cathedral of Riobamba, Ecuador, dedicated to Monsignor Proaño and the indigenous peoples; and a bronze statue in tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Gandhi Square, in Barcelona.