Amnesty law
[3] With that in mind, the International Criminal Court was established to ensure that perpetrators do not evade command responsibility for their crimes should the local government fail to prosecute.
[4] They have been collectively authored by a group of international human rights and conflict resolution experts led by Louise Mallinder and Tom Hadden at the Transitional Justice Institute.
Although this bill was never formally recognized as law, it has had major political significance, serving as a clear signal of some human rights violators’ continuing power.
[6] A decree by the President in 2006 makes prosecution impossible for human rights abuses, and even muzzle open debate by criminalizing public discussion about the nation's decade-long conflict.
Following persistent activism by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other associations, the amnesty laws were overturned by the Argentine Supreme Court nearly twenty years later, in June 2005.
In 1988, when France refused to meet the budgetary shortfall, the three main banks, all state-owned, collapsed and the government was unable to pay teachers, civil servants and soldiers their salaries, nor students their grants.
This caused domestic opposition to mushroom, rendering the country ‘virtually ungovernable’.20 The World Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) refused to provide emergency assistance because of Benin's failure to adhere to prior agreements.21 Kérékou convened a national conference to discuss the country's future course, bringing together representatives of all sectors of Beninese society, including ‘teachers, students, the military, government officials, religious authorities, non-governmental organizations, more than 50 political parties, ex-presidents, labor unions, business interests, farmers, and dozens of local development organizations’.22 Kérékou believed that he could retain control of the 488 delegates.
Instead, when it met in February 1990, the convention declared itself sovereign, redefined the powers of the presidency, reducing Kérékou to a figurehead role, and appointed Nicéphore Soglo, a former World Bank staff member, to act as executive prime minister.
[9] In December 2010, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned Brazil for failing to investigate and convict those guilty of "arbitrary detention, torture and forced disappearance of 70 people, including members of the Communist Party of Brazil and peasants in the region" of Araguaia River basin, "as result of Brazilian army operations carried out between 1972 and 1975”, during the Araguaia Guerrilla War.
[9] In July 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights again condemned Brazil for the "lack of investigation, trial and punishment of those responsible" for the arrest, torture and death of journalist Vladimir Herzog", which took place in 1975.
[13] When Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London as part of a failed extradition to Spain, which was demanded by magistrate Baltasar Garzón, a bit more information concerning Condor was revealed.
One of the lawyers who asked for his extradition talked about an attempt to assassinate Carlos Altamirano, leader of the Chilean Socialist Party: Pinochet would have met Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie in Madrid in 1975, during Franco's funeral, to have him murdered.
[14] But as with Bernardo Leighton, who was shot in Rome in 1975 after a meeting the same year in Madrid between Stefano Delle Chiaie, Michael Townley and anti-Castrist Virgilio Paz Romero, the plan ultimately failed.
[21] Throughout the Lebanese history, several occasions of amnesty can be detected that precluded prosecution for war crimes committed in conflicts in previous decades.
In the context of Lebanon, amnesty has been considered to be a "politics of protracted conflict,"[22] affecting the anticipation of future violence and influencing the sectarian reality in the country.
Under the rule of Pasha, who was the son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, power in the region was altered from Istanbul to Cairo and the Druze were conscripted to fight along his side.
A second amnesty in the context of Lebanon, which similarly attempted to restore the social order and regenerate loyalty to the ruling powers, was adopted in 1845 by Ottoman foreign minister Sakib Efendi.
Efendi reconfirmed the Kaymakams, however, created for each district an administrative council that included a judge and an advisor for each of the communities, being it Maronite, Druze, Sunni, Greet Orthodox, or Greek Catholic.
[25] Peace was imposed in the region due to the amnesty law adopted in 1845, however, the source of the sectarian clashes was not resolved and distrust among sects increased.
Following these events, the rebellion spread to the south of the country where the Druze population increasingly turned against the Maronite Christians, resulting in heavy losses on both sides.
[22] The treaty reinstated an imperial Ottoman authority over the population of Mount Lebanon and underscored the illegitimacy of previous popular revolts, reinforcing "a strict sectarian hierarchy.
The ahali, the common Druze and Christian villagers that constituted the mass of indigenous society, yet again found themselves back in the position of the obedient followers of the Ottoman Sultan's will.
Within Lebanon, Muslims pushed the government of President Camille Chamoun to join the newly created United Arab Republic, however, Lebanese Christians preferred the country's alliance with the Western powers.
In June 1958, groups backed by Nasser, supported by a considerable amount of the Lebanese Muslim population, attempted to overthrow Chamoun's government.
The prime minister by that time, Saeb Salam, declared the end of the violence with the phrase "No Victor, No Vanquished," which made him a communal hero in that period.
[41] Covering abduction and hostage-taking, the law pardoned offenses that are usually punishable under Article 569 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which prescribes life imprisonment for such crimes.
As several authors have pointed out, little public discussion of the past is present in contemporary Lebanon: "There is no plan for broader war crimes or human rights trials, and there are no policies in place for transitional justice mechanisms or a national reconciliation process.
"[48] Subsequently, memory and reconciliation with regard to the past war continues to take place within a communitarian framework, reinforcing the role of the zu'amā, the politico-religious leaders.
[55] In 1977, the first democratic government elected after Franco's death passed the Law 46/1977, of amnesty, which exempted of responsibility to everyone who committed any offence for political reasons prior to this date.
[58] During the War on Terror, the United States enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 in an attempt to regulate the legal procedures involving illegal combatants.
