24 Jun 2016
This report, titled Challenging the Amnesty Law in El Salvador: Domestic and International Alternatives to Bring an End to Impunity, analyzes El Salvador's post-conflict process, which lacks a comprehensive approach to guarantee truth, justice, reparation, and non-recurrence.
The purpose of this report is to evaluate the criminal justice measures that could be implemented in El Salvador today, including those internationally available, and explain how they might help bring an end to the impunity that has prevailed since the peace accords were signed.
Section one summarizes the characteristics of the internal conflict, the route to the peace agreement signed in January 1992, and the enactment of a broad amnesty law in March 1993. Section two describes the pressures from the international community to revise this law and explores the possibility of moving forward with additional mechanisms. The essay concludes by suggesting that renewed efforts in the international arena as well as at national level are needed to encourage El Salvador’s judicial branch to overturn the amnesty law and open a new path to justice.
