Review: Bridging the Local and the Global: Latin America and the Diffusion of Advances

Related to Human Rights

Reviewed Work(s): Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of State Institutions for Human
Rights by Sonia Cardenas; Impunity, Human Rights, and Democracy: Chile and Argentina,
1990–2005 by Thomas C. Wright
Review by: Collin Grimes
Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 44, No. 4, The Chilean Earthquake of 2010:
Challenging the Capabilities of the Neoliberal State (July 2017), pp. 204-208
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44645754
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 Book Review

Bridging the Local and the Global

Latin America and the Diffusion of Advances
Related to Human Rights
by
Collin Qrimes

Sonia Cardenas Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of State Institutions for Human Rights.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Thomas C. Wright Impunity, Human Rights, and Democracy: Chile and Argentina, 1990-
2005. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014.

Recent decades have seen the emergence of scholarship on the worldwide diffusion
of advances related to human rights. Scholars have written about the expanding legiti-
macy of human rights norms (Risse-Kappen, Ropp, and Sikkink, 1999) and examined
the rise of norm-diffusing agents and nontraditional international actors (Keck and
Sikkink, 1998). Other scholars (Burt, 2009; Pion-Berlin, 2004) have focused upon the
events constituting what Kathryn Sikkink (2011: 5) calls the "justice cascade" - the
increase in prosecutions of former heads of state, military personnel, and others for
human rights violations beginning in the late twentieth century. By breaking from inter-
national-centric accounts and emphasizing the dual roles of domestic and global forces
in shaping the spread of human rights advances, Sonia Cardenas's Chains of Justice: The
Global Rise of State Institutions for Human Rights and Thomas C. Wright's Impunity,
Human Rights, and Democracy: Chile and Argentina, 1990-2005 , contribute meaningfully
to this literature.
Cardenas explores the creation of national administrative bodies responsible for pro-
moting and protecting human rights. Since the 1990s over 100 countries have created
such institutions, and dozens of others have agreed to do so. National human rights
institutions have been adopted widely in every region of the world. Latin America has
both the highest relative concentration of such institutions in the world and the greatest
number fully accredited by the International Coordinating Committee of National
Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (153). Among Latin
American countries, only Cuba and the Bahamas have not created or agreed to create
human rights institutions (186).
Cardenas argues that a logic of "strategic emulation" guides the creation of these
institutions. State actors adopt them when they are in a period of norm ambiguity and
have neighbors that have done so. When these actors' normative commitments and
authority are open to interpretation, foreign governments, UN groups, and regional
organizations have an opportunity to promote new ideas. The existence of national
human rights institutions elsewhere in the region, meanwhile, signals to leaders in
these circumstances the availability of a solution that is considered appropriate by
authorities nearby. Socially, creating a national human rights institution legitimates the

Collin Grimes is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Riverside.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 215, Vol. 44 No. 4, July 2017, 204-208
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X16635295
© 2016 Latin American Perspectives

204

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 Grimes / BOOK REVIEW 205

state in the eyes of leaders in states that already have them. Strategically, creating such
an institution enables leaders to assume control over human rights as a regulatory area,
to improve the state's image by signifying a commitment to rule-abiding behavior, and
to minimize the need for complainants to resort to dispute-resolution mechanisms out-
side of the state. Three kinds of periods of norm ambiguity are distinguished:
"Regulatory moments" are periods marked by new opportunities for state transforma-
tion, such as regime transitions and postconflict agreements. They present actors with
alternative institutional scenarios with regard to domestic human rights protection.
"External obligations" are duties to an outside organization or state regarding domestic
human rights defense, for example, commitments to UN treaties pertaining to human
rights enforcement. Actors respond by seeking to localize authority and avoid external
scrutiny. "Organized abuse" is a pattern of behavior by state authorities representing
systematic violations of human rights norms in the context of which leaders seek to
appease the world community and their own citizens.
Cardenas provides evidence of strategic emulation by presenting the results of sta-
tistical analyses examining which if any of the following factors increases the likelihood
of institution creation and the authority of those institutions: human rights abuses,
regional diffusion of national human rights institutions, global diffusion of national
human rights institutions, regulatory moments, rule of law, human rights treaty com-
mitments, the combination of rule of law and treaty commitments, regime type, domes-
tic nongovernmental organizations, economic development, population size, and
common-law system. Of these only human rights abuses, regional diffusion, regulatory
moments, and the combination of external treaty commitments and strong rule of law
were found to be significantly related to the creation of national human rights institu-
tions. Regulatory moments, strong rule of law, and population size were found to be
significantly related to the international accreditation of the institution in question, a
measure of authority.
El Salvador, for example, created its human rights institution during a regulatory
moment: the Chapultepec peace accords. While drafting the postconflict agreement
leaders created the Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Counsel
for the Defense of Human Rights) by constitutional amendment in 1991 and legislation
in 1992 (157). The adoption followed in the lead of state actors in Mexico, where Latin
America's first national human rights institution was created in 1990. Leaders in
Colombia and Peru, by contrast, created their human rights institutions in the context
of a regulatory moment, external obligations, and organized abuse. The Colombian
Defensoria del Pueblo (Ombudsman) was created in 1991 by constitutional amendment
and legislation (158). Leaders in Peru created their Defensoria del Pueblo in 1993 by
including it in the constitution (165). Like El Salvador, Colombia and Peru were in the
midst of regulatory moments, as both were overhauling their constitutions. However,
their paths were unique because both had ratified international human rights agree-
ments and levels of organized abuse of nonstate guerrillas were high.
The book's 11 sweeping chapters address, in addition to the argument and the quan-
titative and qualitative empirical analyses, the concept of the self-restraining state, insti-
tutional precursors, stages in the diffusion of national human rights institutions,
evaluation of the impact of those institutions, and the way state actors make and break
international law. There are five case studies organized around evidence of period-
specific and region-specific motives: "Trendsetters and Early Adopters, pre-1990,"
"Democratization Scripts and Bandwagoning in Africa," "Transitional Myths and
Everyday Politics in the Americas," "Appeasement via Localization in the Asia Pacific,"
and "Membership Rites and Statehood in the New Europe." The early adopters of the
1970s and the bandwagoners of the 1990s were moved by different forces. Countries
that created human rights institutions acted on considerations shaped by the particular

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206 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

experiences common to the region. The sharpest differences along regional lines d
guish Latin America and Eastern Europe; whereas Latin America's emerging democ
cies emphasized democratization, legalism, and institutionalization, Eastern Eu
democratizing states focused upon securing membership in the European Unio
Cardenas's work is significant in that it highlights the intervention of state acto
the issue of human rights. Human rights issues are now as much the purview of s
actors as of domestic and transnational nongovernmental organizations seeking jus
for abuses by state authorities. This is the case even though state actors are "
faced" in their simultaneous promotion and violation of human rights (17). Ca
places this tension at the center of her argument. The resulting account is theore
provocative and empirically commanding. Ultimately, she shows that state institu
for human rights are fundamentally about the retention and expansion of the pow
and authority of state actors.
Besides providing the most comprehensive study of national human rights insti
tions yet, Cardenas adds to conversations in the literatures on diffusion of human r
advances, international diffusion more generally, and institutional change. The lit
ture on the worldwide diffusion of norms and prosecutions has tended to ex
nation-level factors in favor of international ones (Risse-Kappen, Ropp, and Si
1999; Sikkink, 2011). The recent literature on the mechanisms of international dif
has likewise not fully incorporated the domestic context (Simmons, Dobbin
Garrett, 2008). Yet international relations are affected by domestic circumstances
Cardenas recognizes. Besides incorporating nation-level factors, her argument com
ments recent scholarship on institutional change privileging the impact on act
ambiguity. In uncertain situations, actors find themselves in doubt about probabil
In ambiguous situations, by contrast, they confront circumstances that can be int
preted in multiple ways (352). The social sciences have largely privileged uncertain
but Cardenas and others show that differences over meaning are also consequ
(Mahoney and Thelen, 2009; Sheingate, 2009).
Chains of Justice nonetheless has at least two shortcomings. First, the argument
not explain the first instance of the creation of a national human rights institution
region. Mexico's Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos was the first na
human rights institution created in Latin America. It was created by executive de
in 1990 (156). That Cardenas does not reference a regional influence on the creatio
this institution testifies to this limitation of the argument. Second, the analysis is li
by a lack of clarity regarding the effect of institutional alternatives. Cardenas de
chapter to past institutions that bear similarities to national human rights institu
but it is unclear from the analysis how the presence of these institutions influen
creation of new ones. In the case studies she attributes, at different times, both th
stalling and the structuring of the creation of a national human rights institution
to the existence of a local precursor. It is cited as a possible reason a national
rights institution was created in Honduras (162), Venezuela, and Bermuda (17
but not in Gambia (149). That the work leaves this question unresolved is som
problematic given that Cardenas sets out to provide an institutionalist account.
The proliferation of national human rights institutions reminds us of how quic
human rights forces can spread. At the start of any process of diffusion, mot
people take political action to achieve the degree of change it takes to cause others
follow suit (Sikkink, 2011: 24). Wright underscores this in his study of the constr
tion, erosion, and demise of legal impunity for human rights violators in Chile (1
1990) and Argentina (1976-1983), where military regimes flagrantly de
international human rights standards by detaining, torturing, exiling, killing
disappearing thousands in an effort to eradicate Marxism. For some time, vio
enjoyed impunity after democratization. In Argentina the new civilian govern

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 Grimes / BOOK REVIEW 207

initially prosecuted violators, but military pressure triggered the end of prosecutions
under 1986 and 1987 amnesty laws and blanket pardons in 1989 and 1990. In Chile
amnesty and the "protected democracy" left by the Pinochet dictatorship prevented
prosecution for a time. Impunity came under renewed attack in the 1990s, however,
and by 2005 had been vanquished. Once amnesties and pardons were ruled unconsti-
tutional in Argentina and civilians extended control over the military in Chile, an
abundance of prosecutions followed. Understanding these defeats matters, Wright
asserts, because of their uniqueness (in other trials of human rights violators only a
few were held accountable, but in Argentina and Chile impunity was lifted for all)
and because the actions appear to be influencing officials elsewhere in Latin America,
including Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, and Guatemala.
Wright argues that the defeat of impunity was the result of the steadfastness of
domestic and international human rights groups, changes in domestic and interna-
tional legal environments, unanticipated events, and changes in military leadership.
The human rights movements in Chile and Argentina had begun at the start of military
rule but lost ground after the return to democracy. Between the 1970s and 1990s the UN
and inter- American legal frameworks for human rights were expanded and refined.
The inter- American human rights system became more active, creative, and assertive
through the 1990s. Domestic actors like the Vicaría de la Solidaridad (Vicariate of
Solidarity) in Chile, the Colegio de Abogados de Chile (Chilean Bar Association), and
the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Center for Legal and Social Studies) in
Argentina increased their calls for the application of international human rights norms
in domestic courts. But impunity had been established, and the Argentine and Chilean
publics had distanced themselves from the recent past. Military leadership and judicia-
ries left over from military rule and from the Menem era in Argentina also impeded
change.
Circumstances changed in the mid-1990s. The new international jurisprudence cen-
tered on using international law to prosecute human rights abusers domestically was
met with judicial reform. In Argentina the Supreme Court was purged of justices favor-
able to the military, and in Chile the number of justices was increased to offset the influ-
ence of the appointees of Pinochet. Unanticipated events that coincided with
anniversaries of key developments under state terrorism - televised confessions of
death flights in Argentina in 1995 and, in 1998, the arrest of Pinochet in London for
crimes against humanity - reignited popular sentiment against impunity. Then, in the
2000s, far-reaching civilian-led changes in military control ushered in a new generation
of military leaders. The end of military obstruction and then of impunity followed.
Wright tells this story in six chapters that take us through state terrorism in the
Southern Cone, the construction of impunity, human rights advocacy, changing legal
environments, precipitating events, and the eclipse of impunity. He attends to both the
particularities of each country's story - as marked by unique historical developments,
domestic power relations, and differing relationships to the international community -
and to the general tendencies that make it useful and important to examine them
together. The result is a study that captures the richest of details (the public mood, the
pronouncements of the actors, the tension) but also broad lessons applicable to discus-
sions of transitional justice and the diffusion of international human rights norms.
Among the lessons is that the path-defining change required to instigate diffusion is no
simple matter; rather, it takes a constellation of domestic and international factors, not
least links between civil society and the international human rights lobby, clean judicia-
ries, public remembrance, and compliant militaries.
Impunity , Human Rights , and Democracy highlights the role of memory in transitional
justice and bridges domestic and international levels of analysis. Wright underlines the
role of memory in dealing with past atrocities. Scholars of transitional justice stress both

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208 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

remembering and forgetting violence - remembering to ensure that it will

repeated, forgetting so that normal life can be lived again (Hayner, 2001: 2). In Arg
and Chile, the defeat of impunity partly depended upon the public's rememberin
past for what it really was; while dedicated activists never quit, it took dramatic
to awaken the public and revive the court of public opinion. With Cardenas,
speaks to the necessity of accounting for domestic and international factors in a
of the international diffusion of human rights advances. His careful study of Ar
and Chile - two countries whose prosecutions followed trials in Greece and P
but triggered diffusion of their own in Latin America - demonstrates that domest
tors matter at both the start of and during diffusion.
The diffusion of advances related to human rights depends as much on domest
on international forces. The local context is not separable from the global contex
the object of analysis is change in the national system. Cardenas demonstrates as
in her analysis of national human rights institutions, institutions charged with de
human rights that have proliferated in recent decades, especially in Latin Am
Moreover, the national developments that help launch and demarcate processes of
fusion are the product of a complex interplay of domestic and international fact
Wright shows this in his analysis of action to end legal impunity for abusers in Ch
Argentina, action that joined global and triggered regional political action to pro
human rights violators. Scholars and practitioners seeking analyses of the compa
and international forces shaping the diffusion of advances linked to human righ
find satisfaction in Chains of Justice and Impunity, Human Rights, and Democracy.

REFERENCES

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Mahoney, James and Kathleen Thelen
2009 "A theory of gradual institutional change," pp. 1-37 in James Mahoney and Ka
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Pion-Berlin, David
2004 "The Pinochet case and human rights progress in Chile: was Europe a catalyst, cau
inconsequential?" Journal of Latin American Studies 36: 479-505.
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