Accountability for Transnational Crimes in South America: The Pioneering Operation Condor Trial

• In Event: El juez y el testigo: convergencias y disputas de "saberes" en los juicios por los crímenes contra los derechos humanos en América Latina.

Abstract

The Operation Condor trial, which recently ended in Buenos Aires in 2016, is a ground-breaking example of accountability for transnational crimes. Operation Condor was a secret transnational network of intelligence and repressive operations created by the regimes of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. Between 1975 and 1981, Operation Condor persecuted political opponents, perpetrating hundreds of disappearances and assassinations across South America, reaching even Europe and the US.
Unlike previous criminal trials for past human rights violations, the Operation Condor prosecution is unprecedented for attempting to redress transnational crimes, adopting a cross-national focus on two levels: criminal acts committed in six countries and the nationality of both victims and defendants.
Transitional justice has, so far, paid scant attention to transnational crimes. Using the case study of this unique trial, this paper aims to move beyond nation-level frames of analysis that have dominated transitional justice, beginning to incorporate transnational crimes into scholarly and practitioner debates. By exploring the transnational focus to accountability adopted in the Condor trial, the paper assesses the significance of this pioneering prosecution for the fields of human rights and transitional justice. The paper draws upon extensive field research in South America, in particular, interviews with key actors in the Condor trial in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and documents consulted at four archives.

Author

• Francesca Lessa, University of Oxford