Justice

Abstract

KATHRYN SIKKINK ARGUES THAT THE WORLD IS EXPERIENCING A JUSTICE CASCADE, by which she means “that there has been a shift in the legitimacy of the norm of individual criminal accountability for human rights violations and an increase in criminal prosecutions on behalf of that norm. The term captures how the concept started as a small stream, but later caught on suddenly, sweeping along many actors in its wake.”¹ Peruvian transitional justice has contributed greatly to the growing force of that cascade, at the same time that the normative pressure for greater human rights accountability pulled Peru along. Twenty years ago, human rights trials were rare in the Americas, and dictators and members of state security forces enjoyed impunity for their crimes. But at the start of the twenty-first century, the legacies of Latin America’s long struggle for human rights accountability crystallized in breakthrough decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Peru’s domestic courts. The result would be prosecutions of Peruvian soldiers, police officers, intelligence agents, and ultimately even former president Alberto Fujimori.