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

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Report on Impunity Watch Expert Debate

1 July 2009, Amsterdam: Remembering the Srebrenica and Rwanda genocides: Do war memorials unite or divide?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Impunity Watch Research Instrument

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

Landmark judgment in Guatemalan forced disappearance case

11/09/2009 - On the 7 September, a criminal court in the Chimaltenango region handed down its judgment in the first case of enforced disappearance to be brought before a Guatemalan tribunal.

In the landmark decision, Military Commissioner Felipe Cusanero was sentenced to 150 years in prison for the crime of enforced disappearance of six members of the Choatulum indigenous community between 1982 and 1984. The court based its judgment primarily on testimonial evidence provided by eye-witnesses, and on contextual evidence provided by the 1999 report of the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), as well as various reports of the Inter-American Commission. The court also referred in numerous parts of its judgment to the victims' right to the truth, citing international conventions and jurisprudence.

The UN-backed CEH estimated more than ten years ago that the state was responsible for 93% of the 200,000 deaths and disappearances perpetrated in the country’s internal armed confrontation; the Cusanero judgment represents the first time a perpetrator of enforced disappearance has been brought to justice in Guatemala.

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