Report on Impunity Watch Panel Discussion

Transitional justice: are we ticking the boxes when we should be joining the dots?

Café Dudok, The Hague, 15 December 2009

Read more

Report on Impunity Watch Expert Debate

1 July 2009, Amsterdam: Remembering the Srebrenica and Rwanda genocides: Do war memorials unite or divide?
Read more

Dealing with Impunity in Serbia - Options and Obstacles

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Serbia, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed by the Serbian state and citizens during the wars of Yugoslavia's dissolution during the 1990s.
Read more

Recognising the Past: Challenges in the Combat of Impunity in Guatemala

Now available in English, this document provides a summary of a research project conducted over the past two years in Guatemala, examining the root causes and nature of impunity for crimes committed during its long civil war.
Read more

The Persistence of Truth

This report looks at progress in truth-seeking and the combat of impunity in Guatemala ten years after its UN-backed truth comission, the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), published its findings on the events of the internal armed confrontation of 1960-96.
Read more

Impunity Watch Research Instrument

This Impunity Watch tool offers a basic framework for researching the state of accountability in post-conflict societies.
Read more

NEWS

Guatemalan Court hands down groundbreaking decision on disappearances

24/07/2009 - In a long awaited decision, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court on 7 July 2009 recognised the permanent nature of the crime of enforced disappearance, paving the way for relatives of the estimated 45,000 victims of disappearances committed during Guatemala´s 36 year internal armed conflict to seek justice.

In the first disappearance case to be brought before Guatemalan courts, former Military Commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj stands accused of the crime of enforced disappearance of six indigenous residents of Choatulum, Chimaltenango, between 1982 and 1984.

The trial before the Chimaltenango Sentencing Tribunal was suspended in 2006 when Cusanero’s defence counsel challenged the constitutionality of the charge, arguing it violated the principles of legality and non-retroactivity of the law, given that the crime did not become part of Guatemalan criminal law until 1996, more than 10 years after the disappearances occurred. These challenges were rejected by lower courts, leading the accused to appeal to the Constitutional Court in August 2006.

In its recent decision, the Court found that the permanent nature of the crime of enforced disappearance, as established in the Guatemalan Criminal Code, means that the perpetrator continues to commit the crime for as long as the whereabouts of the victim or victims remain unknown, regardless of when the disappearance occurred. The Court went on to find that in such cases, there is no retroactive application of the law even if the conduct commenced before the relevant article of the Criminal Code entered into force, given that it continued after that date.

The trial of Cusanero will recommence shortly.

Back to all news articles