Resolving the Human Rights Violations of a Previous Regime

Abstract

adopt one or more of these policies is driven by four objectives: reconciliation, deterrence, jus tice, and legitimacy. When a government pur sues multiple objectives, the different contribu tions of each objective can create debilitating systemic contradictions. While a government can simultaneously pursue justice, deterrence, and legitimacy with minimal policy conflicts, the addition of reconciliation to any or all of the other three objectives seriously undermines the successor government's attempts to deal with past human rights violations. This conflict stems from fundamental differences in the poli cies necessary to pursue each objective. The extent to which a government or the international community wants to emphasize one or more of the objectives dictates the blend of policies it adopts. To be successful, the authorities must recognize the contributions and contradictions that each policy can make to the pursuit of the different objectives. Once this process is completed, the authorities can select the appropriate blend of policies. The first three objectives-reconciliation, deterrence, and justice-have been studied extensively; however, the need of the interna tional community and successor government, especially a democratic government, to estab lish legitimacy is virtually ignored in the human rights literature. This oversight leaves the analysis of the prosecution of human rights vio lators incomplete. While the search for legiti macy is not the only reason for government and international action, it helps to explain the ebb and flow of calls for national governments and international tribunals to prosecute human rights violators.