Seeking Human Rights Justice in Latin America

Book excerpt: This book studies how victims of human rights violations in Latin America, their families, and their advocates work to overcome entrenched impunity and seek legal justice. Their struggles show that legal justice is a multifaceted process, the overarching purpose of which is to restore human dignity and prevent further violence. Uncovering, revealing, and proving the truth are essential elements of legal justice, and are also powerful tools to activate the process. When faced with stubborn impunity at home, victims, families, and advocates can carry on their work for legal justice by bringing cases in courts in other countries or in the Inter-American human rights system. These extra-territorial courts can jumpstart the process of legal justice at home. Seeking Human Rights Justice in Latin America examines the political and legal struggle through the lens of the human story at the heart of these cases.