On December 10

On this day in ...
... 1945 (65 years ago today), Gabriela Mistral addressed a banquet at City Hall in Stockholm, where earlier in the day she'd been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She stressed the bonds between Sweden and her own country:

As a daughter of Chilean democracy, I am moved to have before me a representative of the Swedish democratic tradition, a tradition whose originality consists in perpetually renewing itself within the framework of the most valuable creations of society. ...
At this moment, by an undeserved stroke of fortune, I am the direct voice of the poets of my race and the indirect voice for the noble Spanish and Portuguese tongues. Both rejoice to have been invited to this festival of Nordic life with its tradition of centuries of folklore and poetry.

Mistral (prior posts), who'd been born Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga 56 years earlier, was not only a renowned poet, but also a diplomat, serving on League of Nations cultural committee and as a Chilean consul in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. (credit for photo of 5,000-peso note honoring her) She's the transnational foremother of IntLawGrrl Naomi Roht-Arriaza.

(Prior December 10 posts are here, here, and here.)

Uruguay Supreme Court annuls amnesty law, as accountability continues in Latin America

The Uruguayan Supreme Court made Uruguay the second country in Latin America – after Argentina – to formally annul the amnesty law passed to protect members of the security forces from accusations that they committed torture, disappearance and summary execution during the period of military control (1973-85).
The action taken on Monday by Uruguay's highest court (photo credit) came as the legislature was considering a bill to do the same thing.
Last year, the same court had struck down much of the 1986 amnesty law – Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensión Punitiva del Estado – in a single case involving the 1974 killing of Nibia Sabalsagaray (below left), a literature professor. The current ruling made that decision applicable in all cases. The court’s decision in the earlier case held that Articles 1, 3 and 4 of the amnesty law was unconstitutional because it:
► Violated the separation of powers;
► Did not constitute a valid amnesty; and
► Violated Uruguay’s human rights commitments.
These articles suspended criminal prosecution (Article 1), and gave the executive branch the power to decide whether a particular crime or episode fell within the scope of the amnesty (Articles 3 and 4), thus violating principles of separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.
In addition, the unanimous decision found that the law interfered with the rights of victims to truth and to judicial process. The court cited the role of international law in Uruguay’s legal system and precedents from neighboring Argentina, as well as the inter-American human rights system’s Commission and Court, in reaching its decision.
What makes the Uruguayan decision particularly interesting is that the Uruguayan public has –twice – rejected a call to overturn the amnesty law via plebiscite.
Uruguayan law allows laws to be overturned if a large number of people call for a plebiscite. Although civil society groups in 2009 managed to gain the required number of signatures to put the issue on the ballot, it lost narrowly. Thus, the Court was acting to uphold legal principles, even in the face of contrary public opinion.
It is unclear how many additional cases will result, since less than 200 forced disappearances or killings took place in Uruguay; most Uruguayans suspected of leftist activity were killed or disappeared in neighboring Argentina. If the courts start taking up torture cases, that will change, since a large number of Uruguayans were tortured during the years of military control. Some of the top leaders of that period, including former presidents Juan Bordaberry and Gregorio Alvarez (right), are already in prison based on earlier cases found not to come within the ambit of the amnesty law. (photo credit)
The court’s decision brings Uruguay into line with its neighbors.
Argentina annulled its amnesty law in 2005, and trials are under way regarding events in the most notorious secret detention centers.
Chile has still not formally annulled its amnesty law. But Chilean courts have not applied the amnesty law to crimes committed by the military or police during the Pinochet regime for several years now.
Brazil remains the sole holdout.
Even though the number of violations in Brazil during the years of dictatorship were relatively low, military officials have taken the position that any effort to bring cases to court is an affront to their institutional role, and would reopen unfinished debates about the legality of the 1964 coup. The Brazilian Supreme Court decided to uphold the amnesty law on grounds that the courts could not interfere with a political decision and that human rights commitments were only acquired subsequent to the crimes and so could not be the basis for overturning the law. Even so, the Brazilian government has paid reparations to victims and survivors, has held investigations, and is discussing a truth commission. Civil society groups and the Caravana da Anistia, the Amnesty Commission within the Justice Ministry, will be pushing the new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to take a fresh look at the issue – especially given the increasingly solid regional consensus that formal amnesties, at least, are a thing of the past.

On August 24

On this day in ...
... 2004, reversing a decision by the intermediate court of appeals, the Supreme Court of Argentina ruled 5-3 that statutes of limitation do not apply to charges of crimes against humanity. The ruling in Arancibia Clavel, Enrique Lautaro s/ homicidio calificado y asociación ilícita y otros arose out of an appeal of a trial court's judgment convicting an agent of DINA, the secret police that operated in Argentine and Chile during the regime of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, with having committed homicide by use of explosives and for participation in a criminal association. Among the instruments that the Argentinian high court (above right) cited in its ruling were the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the 1968 Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. (photo credit)

(Prior August 24 posts are here, here, and here.)

Garzón suspendido

The relationship of national laws with international law is, of course, the knot at the heart of the Garzón affair. Should Spain's 1977 Amnesty Law, which predates the Constitution, stand in the way of international legislation to which Spain is now signatory?

-- Journalist Julius Purcell, in an Atlantic dispatch from Barcelona, Spain, where on Friday Judge Baltasar Garzón was suspended and ordered to stand trial on an accusation related to his decision to investigate Franco-era crimes notwithstanding the national amnesty law. (credit for photo of Garzón, back to camera, and supporters outside courthouse immediately after suspension) Also pending against Garzón (prior posts), best known for his pursuit of Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, are 2 other Spanish complaints, according to El Pais. These latter relate, 1st, to surveillance ordered in a corruption case, and 2d, to financing of a course at New York University.
The suspension occurred just 2 days after an International Criminal Court press release containing no mention of the judge's troubles at home confirmed that Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's asked Garzón to come to The Hague "to work as a consultant for seven months, helping the office improve its investigative methods."
Purcell's Atlantic story -- which includes the answers of Spanish Magistrate Clara Bayarri and Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán to the question posed above -- is rich in detail and nuance. It's thus most welcome by anyone who's trying to sort out this complex story.

On May 6

On this day in ...
... 1980 (30 years ago today), María Luisa Bombal (right) died in Santiago, Chile, 69 years after her birth in that country. After her father died when she was 12, she and the rest of her family moved to Paris, where she earned a literature degree from the Sorbonne. Eventually, she returned home and married. Suffering from depression, she shot her husband, then fled to Argentina. In South and North America, she was an acquaintance of authors -- including Victoria Ocampo -- and Bombal herself became a novelist and short story writer. "Her work is now highly regarded, incorporating themes of eroticism, surrealism and proto-feminism..."

(Prior May 6 posts are here, here, and here)

Turning tables, Latin America sues Spain

Survivors of persons who perished during dictatorship are pressing Argentinian judges to investigate allegations of international offenses in Spain.
Filing the complaint yesterday were Buenos Aires residents Darío Rivas Cando (center) and Inés García Holgado (near right). (credit for photo of press conference, also depicting, at far right, Nora Cortiñas, head of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo)
Their suit marks the 1st request in Latin America for "the exercise of the principle of universal jurisdiction" over "genocide and/or crimes against humanity." (Page 2 of complaint in Spanish, available in pdf here.) It asks for an investigation extending from 1936 to 1977 -- the entire era in which General Francisco Franco (prior posts) ruled Spain, an era during which tens of thousands were killed.
Spain, of course, has been the locus for criminal proceedings against perpetrators of torture and other crimes committed under military rule in Argentina and Chile. This suit thus turns tables.
It also affords support for the Spanish judge who initiated the investigations related to Latin America, Baltasar Garzón (left). He's been under attack in his own country: he himself is under criminal indictment for his decision to investigate crimes of the Franco era in spite of a national amnesty issued in 1977.
Efforts to continue to shield alleged perpetrators in Spain seem likely to add strength to the Argentine complainants' argument that their own national courts must enforce accountability.

Guest Blogger: Alexandra Huneeus

The recent tragedy in Chile, and the second devastating earthquake to hit this hemisphere in as many months, keeps our attention turned to our southern neighbors. (See also this recent "on this day" noting the anniversary of Pinochet's release.) We thus welcome Dr. Alexandra Huneeus (left) as today's guest blogger. In her guest post below, she discusses her research on human rights litigation in Chile.
As Assistant Professor of Law and Legal Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex teaches public international law, sociology of law, human rights, and Latin American courts and politics. Her research focuses on politics, courts and human rights in Latin America. Before joining the UW faculty in 2007, Alex was a fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She received her Ph.D. (2006) and her J.D. (2001) from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex is the editor (with Javier Couso and Rachel Sieder), of Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). Her article Judging from a Guilty Conscience: The Chilean Judiciary's Human Rights Turn (Law and Social Inquiry 2010) forms part of an ongoing inquiry into the prosecution of Pinochet-era crimes. She is also working on a project that examines the relationship of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and national courts. Alex is on the Board of the Law and Society Association, and is committed to the inter-disciplinary, empirical study of law.
As a fellow at the International Human Rights Clinic at Berkeley Law in 2004, she supervised students bringing a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She also worked on the case against Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Spain, through the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco. Prior to her turn to law, Alex worked as an editor and journalist in Santiago, Chile, and in San Francisco, writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, Business Week, El Mercurio, AmericaEconomia and Wired News.
Alex's IntLawGrrls foremother is Violeta Parra (left), the great Chilean composer and singer who wrote Gracias a La Vida. Parra wrote a song commemorating the 1960 earthquake in Chile (which is to this day the strongest earthquake on record) entitled Puerto Montt is Trembling (or "Shaking"). Alex chooses Parra in solidarity with the victims of the recent earthquake and because she devoted her music to understanding Chilean folk traditions and was from the South, so hardstruck by the earthquake this week.

Heartfelt Welcome, Alex!

Human rights turn in Chile's courts

(My thanks to the IntLawGrrls for allowing me to contribute this guest post about my most recent article, Judging from a Guilty Conscience: The Chilean Judiciary's Human Rights Turn (Law and Social Inquiry, 2010), with your audience).

I worked as a journalist in Chile from 1991-1994, the first years of the new democracy. At that time, it was considered inconvenient and something of a faux pas to make mention of the human rights legacy of the Pinochet regime (1973-1990), and most Pinochet-era human rights cases were suspended or closed.

Thus, when I returned in 1999 to conduct legal research for The Center for Justice and Accountability, I was amazed to find that news of prosecution of Pinochet-era crimes filled the front pages of all the kiosk papers. Suddenly, and for the first time, judges (such as Judge Guzman, at left, and Judge Valdovinos, at right below) were actively involved in investigating decades-old crimes they had for years ignored. These were the same judges who had denied over 90% of habeas corpus petitions filed during the height of the Pinochet regime’s violence, and who had been instrumental to legitimating the military regime. Since 1999, these very judges have sentenced more former officials of the military regime for human rights violations than judges of any other country in Latin America.

In this article, I seek to explain this dramatic turn. Extensive interviews with the judges revealed that the prosecutorial turn reflects the judiciary’s attempt to atone for its complicity with the dictatorship. The 1998 arrest of General Pinochet in London created pressure for prosecution of Pinochet-era human rights violations; but it is the contest over the judiciary’s legacy, as an important piece of post-authoritarian memory struggles, that explains why Chile’s notoriously illiberal judiciary ceded to that pressure. Understanding this redemptive dynamic is important, for judiciaries often emerge from a repressive regime with no sense of wrongdoing, quick to blame injustices on the executive, the legislature, or circumstances outside their control.

Virtually no professional group emerged from the Nazi era with so good a conscience as that of the jurists,

Ingo Müller writes (1991, 219). My article explains how this judicial consciousness came to change in Chile, with clear implications for the study of transitional justice, the spread of human rights norms, and the study of judicial politics.

In emphasizing the redemptive impetus, I do not deny that civil society, executive leadership and transnational networks of activists played key roles in the judicial turn. Nor do I mean to depict as heroic a judiciary that has been characterized by reticence and conservatism on rights issues. However, by focusing on the perspective of the judges themselves, the article opens a window on a transformation that has been little explored, and which led to important moments of justice.

One judge, for example, described his search for two men who had disappeared in 1973. The men had fled toward Argentina through the Andes. Thirty years later, a team led by the investigating judge retraced their steps, traveling 360 kilometers (224 miles) into the Andes by horseback:

We rode for ten days. . . . Perhaps an older judge would not have been able to do it. I was camping in the mountains, on the border with Argentina in a tent. . . . We worked with the Police. We worked with investigations. Digging everywhere . . . we found nothing. I took along the brother of one of the disappeared men. And that brother, on the last day, when we found nothing, said to me: “Your honor, do not feel badly. I am satisfied . . . after seeing you in front of all these people, working. After seeing you crawling and digging in the weeds, side by side with your assistants, and you were always the first. Now I am at peace with the justice system. If we cannot [find him] it is because it was impossible, not because the effort wasn’t made. And I think that my mother will be at peace now. She may even die on me now.” The mother passed away the following week. (Interviewee 22, March 11, 2004)

It is not normal practice for the judge to join this part of an investigation, to invite along plaintiffs, or to put so many resources into an expedition likely to fail. By doing so, however, the judge seeks to compensate for the judiciary’s past omissions and for its callousness to the victims of the Pinochet-era crimes. The underlying crime could not be solved, but, by the judge’s telling, the injustice that had been committed by the judiciary of not investigating was now undone. The image of the saddle-sore judge on his knees, with a victim as witness, conveys at once an act of penitence and an act of justice.

On March 2

On this day in ...
... 2000 (10 years ago today), Britain freed former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet (right) following 16 months of house arrest, during which lawyers engaged in "wrangling" (the BBC's word) over the request that Pinochet be extradited to Spain stand trial for torture that had occurred during his 17-year rule. As we've posted, Britain's House of Lords cleared the way for extradition; on this day, however, the British Executive exercised its prerogative to decline to honor Spain's request. Legal wrangling would continue to pursue Pinochet until 2006, when Pinochet died in Chile, under the cloud of national criminal investigation.

(Prior March 2 posts are here, here, and here)

Dealing with Corruption in Haiti

Seconds after the Chile tremors subsided, the comparisons began: Haiti suffers a category 7.0 earthquake and well over 200,000 die (President Rene Preval recently has been predicting 300,000 as the final toll ). Chile experiences a category 8.8 quake--roughly 500 times stronger than Haiti's--and the death toll hovers at less than 200. In the last few days, I have read multiple variations on this theme, and you know what surprises me? That anyone is surprised.

The very idea that a middle income country like Chile, with its strong building codes, low level of perceived corruption, and responsive government could be compared with Haiti is just ludicrous. Chile is a Latin American "dream" poised to become the first OECD member from that region, and Haiti is widely regarded as the poorest country in the Hemisphere. Is it so surprising that their experience of any catastrophe would be vastly different? (Not to mention, of course, that Haiti's earthquake centered around its densely populated capital, while Chile's hit its more remote outer region.) It seems to me the more relevant question is this: How do we help prepare Haiti for the next inevitable crisis?

Experts credit Portugal's 1755 earthquake--which demolished the city of Lisbon, killed as many as 40,000 residents, and precipitated multiple fires and a devastating tsunami--as "the first modern disaster." Citizens demanded change in the way government prepared for and responded to natural disasters. As a result, Portugal reconstructed Lisbon with the zeal of the newly converted: a scientific inquiry into the mechanics of earthquakes was launched, strict zoning rules were passed, and Portugal became the first country in Europe to adopt building codes for seismic activity. In short, Portugal's 1755 catastrophe became the vehicle for change. Is that likely to happen to Haiti as well? Probably not.

The US Geological Survey recently predicted even more seismic activity in the region. There is no question that Haiti (and the island of Hispanola) is likely to experience further significant tremors. But rather than allowing the information to galvanize them into action, the Haitian government is engaged in more of its business-as-usual antics. The Washington Post reported President Rene Preval interrupted a high-level meeting with Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to chide Post reporters for publishing stories of government corruption. "There is no corruption here," Preval reportedly declared. "We have a high sense of morality." Preval is either woefully uninformed or simply unwilling to tackle a serious problem that threatens Haiti's future.

Transparency International ranks Haiti 168 out of 180 countries in terms of the level of perceived corruption of the country's public sector (Chile is ranked 25). Preval might believe there is no corruption, but Haiti's international business partners would respectfully disagree. Indeed, even as Preval was adopting his "no corruption here" mantra, stories abounded of Haitian customs officials demanding humanitarian organizations pay exorbitant "taxes" on donated goods entering the country to aid the millions of displaced Haitians. It seems even in the midst of this epic crisis, the Ministry of Economy and Finance found the time to adopt a new set of procedure for getting supplies into the country: Organizations now were to sign over the goods to the Haitian Department of Civil Protection, which would review their request to get a tax exemption before releasing the goods. The rationale for this new, onerous procedure? To prevent businesses from sneaking in goods tax free under the banner of relief agencies. Ministry officials quickly denied they were taxing humanitarian goods. But for organizations who have volunteered a week or two of service to Haiti, the burdensome new procedures simply ensure the work they went to do would not get done.

There is no great mystery here. We know how to rebuild Haiti's infrastructure to avoid the kind of catastrophic outcome that occurred on January 12: Adopt strong building codes and land use planning procedures that avoid building in hazardous areas, and appoint government agents to ensure compliance. Chile (and Portugal) has shown us the way. But none of that is likely to happen until Haiti's pervasive corruption is resolved . . . or at least circumvented.

Why not appoint an authority responsible for overseeing Haiti's rebuilding effort (I admit here that I am building on a proposal offered up by another at a wonderful conference on Haiti hosted by California State University Sacramento last week)? The authority would be composed of Haitian government officials, to be sure, but also Haitian businesses and citizens, NGOs, and international donors, all of whom have an ultimate stake in the outcome. Who would demand that Haiti establish such an authority? Certainly the Haitian people should, but Haiti's government is not susceptible to the popular will. The international community, which is bringing in millions of dollars to sustain Haiti, does have the clout to demand the creation of such an authority. We should use it.

The Haitian earthquake is a catastrophe of unfathomable proportions. It should serve as a galvanizing force for change in the way Haiti has functioned. This cannot happen without a fundamental shift in the way Haiti does business. We need change.

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'How can they ask us to forget and turn the page, when the consequences for entire families and generations have been so terrible?'

-- Ana González (left), 84, speaking about her decades-long "tireless advocacy for answers about the estimated 3,000 people who were killed or disappeared under the Pinochet dictatorship from 1973 to 1990." Profiled in a superb New York Times piece entitled "A Serene Advocate for Chile’s Disappeared," González lost her husband, 2 sons, and daughter-in-law when they disappeared in 1976. To this day she does not know what happened to them. (photo credit)

ICC online

Need to catch up on what's up at the International Criminal Court?
Check out the court's new digital publication, the ICC Weekly Update.
Recently launched by the ICC's Public Information and Documentation Section, the Update details the happenings of the past week and "case-related judicial work of the Court." It's e-mailed every Monday to representatives of states parties to the the Rome Statute (as announced on page 3 of a recent update, with the addition of Chile, there are now 109 ICC states parties), to nongovernmental organizations, to journalists, and other subscribers.
Pdf versions of current and back issues, in English and French, also are available online here.

Arrests and Convictions of Rights Violators in Latin America: Justice Delayed but Not Denied

Simultaneous advances in the prosecution of grave international crimes by national courts took place in Guatemala and Chile yesterday.

Chile
In Chile, Investigating Judge Victor Montiglio issued arrests warrants for 129 former associates of the secret police (DINA) during the Pinochet years. The warrants involve members of all three branches of the military as well as the police, accused of working with the DINA to forcibly disappear suspected opponents of the government of General Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s. The cases on which the warrants are based include the forced disappearance of top leaders of the Communist Party, the killing of members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, which at the time was portrayed as a result of internecine war within the left, and killings and disappearances as a result of Operation Condor, the South America-wide coordinated effort by the military regimes (with U.S. backing) to rid themselves of leftist activists. The judge indicated that he is pursuing anyone who was involved in the crimes, not just those “most responsible.”
A few interesting issues raised by the warrants:
► First, technically, Chile still has an amnesty law in place, and the center-left governments that succeeded Pinochet have been unable to overturn or “interpret” the law legislatively despite a clear decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in Caso Almonacid Arellano y otros v. Chile (2006), that the government must do so. Rather, the judiciary has itself interpreted the amnesty law so that it does not apply in cases involving either forced disappearances or other international crimes. The amnesty has not stopped indictments, trials and convictions (nor has the statute of limitations on the crimes, which has been held not to apply to either continuing crimes or crimes against humanity). Rather, Chile's Supreme Court, in a number of cases starting last year, has allowed convictions but then reduced the sentence greatly as a result of a procedural device called “half prescription.” Under this device, because the cases have taken so long to go forward, the defendant gets the applicable sentence reduced, and the aggravating factors that would otherwise increase the sentence do not apply. In a number of cases, convictions for the disappearance of sizable numbers of people have led to 3-to-7-year sentences: any sentence less than 5 years can be served on parole. This has led to an interesting debate in Chile:
► Is it better to convict but not punish the former security forces (most now quite elderly), or is that yet another affront to the victims?
This debate is sure to recur as the current crop of cases comes to trial.

Guatemala
In Guatemala yesterday, a trial court convicted Felipe Cusanero of 6 counts of enforced disappearance in the early 1980s. Cusanero was a military commissioner (local army representative) from Chimaltenango province outside the capital. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for each count. The victims were Mayans from the village of Choatulún, and the disappearances were part of an estimated 200,000 deaths and 40,000 disappearances that took place from 1960 to 1996 in Guatemala. This is the first time a local court has convicted a military participant in the massacres that took place in the early 1980s, and the first time the Public Prosecutors’ office has successfully led a prosecution of crimes from that era. The three judges ruled that to condemn the accused on grounds of forced disappearance did not violate the prohibition on ex post facto law, since the underlying acts have long been criminal in both national and international law. The case was closely watched in the Guatemalan courts as a possible small break in the almost-total impunity that now exists for those who ordered and participated in massacres and widespread and systematic disappearances and torture during the “internal armed conflict” period. The judges -- Walter Paulino Jiménez Tixaj, Alba Delia Moscoso Linares y Neslie Guisela Cárdenas Bautista – showed tremendous courage in their verdict, given threats against them, and against any judge who dares hear witnesses or evidence about genocide or crimes against humanity in Guatemala.

So ... a good day for the fight against impunity for international crimes in the Americas. Eric Holder, are you listening?

On August 2

On this day in ...
... 1939 (70 years ago today), in a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Einstein (left), wrote that he had learned from scientists that they were near breakthroughs that could lead to an atomic bomb. Einstein urged Roosevelt to take steps to make sure that uranium that could be used for such bombs -- in places like Belgian Congo -- not fall into Nazi hands. He further urged the speeding of U.S. research. According to this website,

Einstein was willing to write to the President. As a life-long pacifist, he opposed the making of weapons, but he could not allow the Nazis sole possession of such destructive power.

(credit for photo by Yousuf Karsh)
... 1991, in Buenos Aires, diplomats signed the Agreement concerning cooperation between the Chilean Carabineros and the Argentine National Gendarmeria. By establishing a division of labor between the police forces of the 2 countries, the agreement helped to mark the end of a border dispute that had been ongoing for decades.

(Prior August 2 posts are here and here.)

On July 22

On this day in ...
... 1914 (95 years ago today), Hortensia Bussi was born in Valparaiso, Chile. As a young woman she taught history and geography, then worked at a government statistics institute. In 1939, while volunteering in a campaign to aid earthquake victims, she met Salvador Allende; they married the next year. Allende would run 3 times for President before he was finally elected in 1970. First Lady Bussi, pictured at left with President Allende, became active in social aid programs. But her husband died during the coup of September 11, 1973, which began decades of military rule by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Exiled in Mexico, Bussi, known as "Tencha," agitated against Pinochet's government; her contribution is recalled in this El Pais essay by writer and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman. Only after civilian rule was restored did she return home in 1990; there she died last month.
... 1937, "in a session as dramatic as any witnessed in the historic chamber in many years," the Senate voted 70-20 against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to change the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. The vote sent a bill that would have "packed the Court" by adding a new life-tenured Justice whenever an existing Justice became 70-1/2 years old back to committee, never to return again to the full Senate floor. (image credit) A day later Roosevelt would spin the defeat as victory, contending "that its very agitation caused the Supreme Court to reverse its position, and so advanced the country part way toward the original objectives of the bill"; namely, approval of his New Deal programs. FDR's spin was successful, for that is how historians speak of the controversy to this day.

(Prior July 22 posts are here and here.)

On July 6

On this day in ...
... 2005, the House of Representatives of Malta unanimously approved a Motion for the Ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty, thus making the Mediterranean island nation the 12th state party to that European Union pact. But as we've posted, the treaty failed to take effect on account of "No" votes in referenda held earlier the same year in France and the Netherlands. As a consequence the EU then shifted, seeking member states' OK of the Lisbon Treaty, an agreement that includes much of its predecessor but eschews any claim to being a Constitution. The future of this treaty too is in doubt, on 2 fronts: 1st, the electorate in Ireland, having received certain new assurances from the EU since its 2008 "No to Lisbon" vote, will stage a do-over referendum in October; and 2d, a national court has just ruled that Germany's ratification is not yet valid. (credit for map at left, prepared before German court ruling, which shows Ireland, in red, as the lone Lisbon Treaty holdout among EU member states, otherwise in green)
... 1934 (75 years ago today), amid an uprising (right) that had begun the month before, Chilean troops killed hundreds of campesinos -- the exact number is disputed -- around Fundo Ranquil, an area at the Biobío River near Chile's midpoint. (photo credit) A detailed account, in Spanish, of this unsuccessful movement by the Mapuche people to establish a "República Indígena" is available here.

(Prior July 6 posts are here and here.)

And then there were 109: State Party Puzzler

Just in time for today's 7th anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the ICC Treaty has acquired its 109th state party.

The milestone was reached Monday when Chile deposited its instrument of ratification.

No small feat for an institution that many international pundits thought would struggle to get the 60 joinders necessary to begin operations.

The news prompts today's State Party Puzzler:

What countries preceded Chile, and when did they become the ICC's 107th & 108th states parties?

Answer below.

Answer to State Party Puzzler

Answer to puzzler above:

The 107th state party to the Statute of the International Criminal Court is Surinamand the 108th is Cook Islands. Each took the step by way of treaty accession nearly a year ago, on July 15 and 18, respectively.

As our Opinio Juris colleague Kevin Jon Heller has pointed out, with the addition of Suriname last year and Chile this week, "every country in South America is now a a member of the ICC -- a significant accomplishment." And as our commenter Deborah points out below, the accession of Cook Islands was "a very important step to redress the under-representation of Asia and the Pacific in the ICC system." (Thanks for helping us give a correct answer to this puzzler, Deborah!)

A blow to democracy & human rights

This week the armed forces of Honduras overthrew democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya (left), arresting him at home and bundling him off to Costa Rica in his pyjamas. The army then installed its own president, with the thin legal veneer of the Honduran Supreme Court's blessing. The Organization of American States, the Obama administration, and human rights groups protested and called for Zelaya's reinstatement.
The coup is a direct violation of the OAS's Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System. By adopting that Commitment during a 1991 meeting in Chile's capital, countries of the hemisphere established a mechanism for collective action in the case of a sudden or irregular interruption of the democratic political institutional process or of the legitimate exercise of power by the democratically elected government in any of the Organization's member states.
This commitment was reaffirmed in 2001, in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which requires the suspension from the OAS of states where elected governments have been found to be illegally overturned.
So why did the Honduran armed forces, backed by the legislature and the supreme court, take what they knew would be a much-criticized action? The U.S. press has stressed the attempt by President Zelaya to change the rules on re-election and the close ties between Venezuela and Honduras.
But that's only a small piece of the story.
The re-election effort was part of a larger package. Its centerpiece was a call for a popular referendum on whether or not to call a Constitutional Convention. Had the referendum, which was supported by labor, peasant, environmental, and human rights groups, passed, Honduras would have joined Latin American countries including Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia, that had rewritten their constitutions after a broad-based (more or less) constitutional rewriting process.
These processes have been tumultuous and highly controversial elsewhere. But on the positive side, they have:
► Broken existing political logjams and dysfunction;
► Established broad rights for indigenous communities; and
► Set the stage for institutional reforms to protect land and the environment and to give the government greater control over resource policies, especially mining and forest projects. These projects, many sponsored by U.S. and Canadian companies, have affected water and other resources and generated widespread local opposition.
Indeed, there are movements afoot in other countries, like Chile, to use upcoming elections to push for a constitutional convention to remake the Pinochet-era constitution there (not to mention efforts in California to call a constitutional convention to remake our own dysfunctional, gridlocked and almost-broke system of government!).
That's what was at stake in Honduras, and why the powers supporting the status quo were willing to brave international criticism to try to derail a new constitution-building initiative.

On May 26

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), in Colombia, diplomats from that country plus Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela signed the Cartagena Agreement (formally titled the Andean Subregional Integration Agreement) "in order to jointly improve their peoples’ standard of living through integration and economic and social cooperation." Today the subregional organization established by this and related agreements, la Comunidad Andina/the Andean Community (flag at right), has 4 members: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Chile withdrew in 1976, and Venezuela, which had joined in 1973, withdrew in 2006.
... 2001, the Constitutive Act of the African Union entered into force. The agreement, by which the 53-state-party-member African Union (flag at left) replaced the 38-year-old Organization of African Unity as the primary regional organization for the continent, had been adopted at Lomé, Togo, on July 11, 2000.

(Prior May 26 posts are here and here.)