Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice.

Roht-Arriaza explores the basis in international law to investigate past human rights violations, to prosecute perpetrators, and to provide redress for victims.

Environmental Management Systems and Environmental Protection: Can ISO 14001 Be Useful Within the Context of APEC?

At the July 1996 Ministerial Meeting on Sustainable Development, the environment ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Corporations (APECs) 18 members agreed to promote ISO 14000, which involves voluntary action by industry to establish environmental management systems (EMSs) and to commit to ongoing improvements in environmental performance. This article analyzes the potential role of the ISO 14001 EMS and related standards in the context of the economies of APEC. It summarizes the genesis and content of the standards and then focuses on aspects that are particularly salient within the APEC context: performance, information generation, and market access. It concludes that ISO 14001 alone will not necessarily lead to improvement in environmental outcomes in the region. The final section explores some options for incorporating ISO 14001 as one element of a larger framework for environmental protection, international cooperation, and sustainable development in APEC.

Universal Jurisdiction: Steps Forward, Steps Back

The arrest of the Chilean general Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in London in 1998, and decisions in UK, Spanish, Belgian, and other European courts supporting his extradition, opened new hope that prosecutions of international crimes in national courts under universal jurisdiction laws might prove a viable strategy for combating impunity. Complainants brought cases in a number of European countries, most notably Spain and Belgium. In Spain, the Supreme Court eventually cut back on the reach of the universal jurisdiction law by superimposing the requirement of a nationality tie to the forum, as well as modifying other prior jurisprudence. In Belgium, the courts grappled with issues of immunity and the ability to initiate proceedings in the absence of the defendant. Under US pressure the Belgian legislature eventually narrowed and weakened the law. The article traces these developments, and concludes that advocates need to be more strategic in choosing both the number and type of cases they present under theories of extraterritorial jurisdiction. The primary criterion, the author argues, should be the potential for the extraterritorial case to catalyze anti-impunity efforts in the territorial state.

After Amnesties are Gone: Latin American National Courts and the New Contours of the Fight Against Impunity

Latin America is the one region that, in the wake of massive and systematic violations of human rights, has made inroads into trying such crimes in national courts. After decades in which cases were dismissed on grounds of amnesty, statutes of limitations, or other impediments to trial, these barriers have fallen in a majority of countries. This turnaround—while fragile and incomplete—is remarkable. It provides important and inspirational lessons for lawyers, judges, and advocates in other regions, and for international justice efforts. Cases involving international crimes in the courts of Latin American countries have experienced distinct phases. In the first phase, advocates confronted barriers to bringing the cases into court at all. In the second and current phase, courts are facing the challenges of organizing trials that involve hundreds of defendants and victims, or using the elements of crimes like genocide to show overall patterns of atrocity. A final, emerging phase shifts the focus from trial to punishment. This phase has led to creative—and controversial—propositions about reduced sentences, suspended sentences, and alternatives to imprisonment in cases involving international crimes.

Reparations and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

In 2012, more and more voices are calling on policymakers to encompass economic, social, and cultural rights—the economic violence that underlies many conflicts—under the banner of transitional justice. The critique of transitional justice as too “top-down,” too elite-driven, and too responsive to donor rather than local priorities merged with a sense that the emphasis on civil and political rights in transitional justice reflects the privilege those rights in Western rights discourse. While there is considerable support for the idea that transitional justice generally needs to grapple more centrally with economic, social, and cultural rights, it is not clear how reparations fit into that picture. This chapter briefly describes reparations programs and their potential contributions to protecting and ensuring economic, social, and cultural rights, with a focus on administrative reparations programs in the transitional context. This is followed by a look at how existing administrative reparations programs have dealt with rights like education, health, and housing in the context of “integral reparations” for other kinds of violations. Then, the chapter turns to efforts to deal directly with violations of economic, social, and cultural rights, especially arising from forced displacement and dispossession of land and property, using South Africa and Colombia as examples. Finally, it considers how reparations programs could more effectively deal with violations of socioeconomic rights, especially where these stem from systematic discrimination and exclusion.