On December 26

On this day in ...
... 1933, delegates at the 7th International Conference of American States, held in the capital of Uruguay, signed the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. Notable among its provisions were these:

ARTICLE 1
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
....
ARTICLE 3
The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. ...

The inter-American treaty thus embraced the declaratory theory of statehood, in contrast with the constitutive theory that makes other states' recognition the marker of statehood.
The Montevideo Convention entered into force exactly 1 year later; the United States was a charter member state. Among the 6 listed members of the U.S. delegation at Montevideo was Dr. Sophonisba Breckinridge (photo credit), a political scientist and attorney profiled in an earlier IntLawGrrls post.


(Prior December 26 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 30

On this day in ...
... 1821, Anita Ribeiro was born in a town in southern Brazil 1 year before it became independent from Portuguese colonizers. She was forced into marriage at age 15; her husband is believed later to have abandoned her. At age 18, she joined forces with Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi and became his partner in love and war. They took part in insurgent battles in Brazil and Uruguay. The couple married in 1842. Soon after they went to Italy to join the revolution of 1848. Fighting in the unsuccessful defense of Rome while pregnant with her 5th child, 27-year-old Anita Ribeiro di Garibaldi (right) fell sick and died on August 4, 1849, near Ravenna, during the retreat of the Garibaldian Legion. (credit for 1839 portrait)

(Prior August 30 posts are here and here.)

On August 16

On this day in ...
... 1946, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca died in New York City, 52 years and 6 days after she'd been born in Zemel, Latvia, the youngest of 4 daughters. In 1900 the family immigrated to Baltimore, where her father worked as a tailor and she attended public schools. Her mother died, and at age 13 Dorothy went to work, hand-sewing buttonholes on men's coat for $3 a week. (As no image of Bellanca appears to exist online, we post above left a photo of New York garment workers performing such work. (credit)) By age 15 she'd "organized female immigrant buttonhole makers into Local 170 of the United Garment Workers of America"; she'd go on to become a leading labor organizer who "promoted class solidarity, but took particular interest in organizing women." During the New Deal era -- at the request of Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, an IntLawGrrls transnational foremother -- she served on the Maternal and Child Welfare Committee. Bellanca also ran to be the Member of Congress representing Brooklyn, losing to the incumbent by a margin of fewer than 16,000 votes out of more than a quarter-million cast. Bellanca recently was featured as "Immigrant of the Day" by our colleagues at Immigration Prof Blog.
... 1869 (140 years ago today), la batallas de Acosta Ñú/Campo Grande, a struggle that had raged for days, took a particularly tragic turn: the massacre of thousands of Paraguayan child soldiers by troops from the Triple Alliance comprising Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Some of the children -- who'd been impressed into service by the leader of Paraguay (flag at right) after many adults were killed or captured -- "fought with fake beards to conceal their age." To this day the event is commemorated as Children's Day in Paraguay.

(Prior August 16 posts are here and here.)

On July 3

On this day in ...
... 1927, during a local plebiscite, Uruguay became the 1st South American country to permit women to vote. (photo credit) As described and depicted in this essay, suffrage was extended so that Uruguayan women could vote in a referendum on how to organize government in the area known as Cerro Chato. Women would not be permitted to vote in national elections in Uruguay until 1938.
... 1940, Nayla Moawad (below right) was born into a "prominent" family in Bsharri, Lebanon. (photo credit) Following education in Lebanon and at Cambridge University in England, she worked as a journalist, then married René Moawad, who would serve as President of Lebanon for 17 days before being assassinated on November 22, 1989. Thereafter Nayla Moawad herself ran for office. She's served as a member of Lebanon's National Assembly since 1991, and as Minister for Social Affairs since 2005. As stated in this sidebar to her 2008 Spiegel Online interview, "She is known for her outspoken criticism of Hezbollah and Syrian hegemony over Lebanon."

(Prior July 3 posts are here and here.)

On May 20

On this day ...
... 1996, crowds of people walked through the streets of Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, in the 1st Marcha del Silencio to protest enforced disappearances in that country. The date had been chosen to mark the 20th anniversary of the assassinations, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of 2 Uruguayan legislators. The annual march continues to this day. (credit for photo of 2008 march)
... 1961, hundreds of U.S. marshals were sent to restore order in Alabama following the attack of "a racially mixed group of bus riders in Montgomery" by "a mob of white persons." Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (below, near right) grounded the federal action on a need to "'guarantee safe passage in interstate commerce.'" Put in charge of the federal operation in Alabama was Deputy Attorney General Byron R. White (far left), whom President John F. Kennedy would nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court the following year. (credit for 1961 photo)

(Prior May 20 posts are here and here.)