On August 24th 2016, the Government of Colombia and the guerrilla group FARC-EP signed the Final Agreement, concluding at least 5 years of peace negotiations, which in turn might end the 52-year-old Colombian Armed Conflict. The Colombian public now has to vote on the Final Agreement in a plebiscite in order for it to come into effect, and function as a binding peace treaty. The agreement contains a 6 point agenda that consists of various provisions for the resolution of the conflict. Its fifth point pertains to victims and the four rights they are entitled to: truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of no repetition. The justice provision attempts to balance retributive and restorative justice, frequently in tension with one another within the framework of transitional justice. Humanity has wrestled with these three types of justice since at least Ancient Greece.[1]
In 458 BC Aeschylus’ trilogy The Oresteia, which portrays how retributive and restorative justice can conflict, won first prize at the Dionysia festival. The first two plays depict the retribution killings of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon because he sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia, and Orestes kills his mother Clytemnestra because she murdered his father Agamemnon. The Furies, female deities of vengeance, influence all members of this family to kill. But in the final play, Athena changes the justice system to guarantee an end to what would have otherwise been a cycle of bloodshed without one. The Furies become the Semnai, or Friendly Goddesses, for favoring mercy over harshness.[2] Similarly to what happens in The Oresteia, the proposed Colombian Peace Treaty ratifies a system of justice that reduces the severity of retributive sentencing to ensure the fulfillment of the victims’ other rights (to truth, reparation and a guarantee of no repetition), thereby ending the cycle of bloodshed that has marked the Colombian armed conflict.
Why should an international audience care about what’s happening in Colombia? Historian Martha Bello, speaking about Colombian society, said: “one must seek that what happened arrives to the ears of a society that often does not know, ignores, justifies or naturalizes its tragedy.”[3] This applies to the rest of the world, however. If people from other countries listen to the stories of their fellow humans, regardless of where they come from, they may not just find themselves rejecting stereotypes of foreigners, but may also see their own attitudes and beliefs reflected in another country’s history. Indeed, they may find out what their true opinions are on war, justice and peacemaking.
In this article, I outline the historical and theoretical frameworks of justice that influenced this Agreement, then give a brief overview of the history of the Colombian Armed Conflict, from the emergence of the FARC-EP to the present. I continue by giving an in-depth description of one of the six points discussed in the agenda, the “Victims Agreement,” in order to show how the theoretical framework of justice that I outlined impacted the Special Jurisdiction that will determine the sentences of committers of grave crimes. Finally, I outline arguments against the Justice provision of the Final Agreement that both local and international organizations have given, and then I counter them.
The Different Faces of Justice
While a broad definition of justice entails notions of “balance” or “equity,” different conceptions of justice have emerged at different times and places to meet a society’s cultural and political contexts. The jurisdiction developed to judge perpetrators of grave crimes during the Colombian Armed Conflict seeks to balance the three different forms of justice: retributive, restorative, and transitional.
Retributive justice claims: 1) Those who commit wrongful acts, such as serious crimes, “morally deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment.” 2) It is intrinsically morally good (good in and of itself) if a legitimate punisher gives them the punishment they deserve. 3) It is morally impermissible to intentionally punish the innocent or inflict disproportionately large punishments on wrongdoers.[4] Retribution, the “proportioning of punishment to the blameworthiness of the offender,” has been confused with retaliation, the “proportioning of punishment to the extent of the resulting harm.”[5] Retribution and retaliation can have “diametrically opposed implications for the proper level of punishment.”[6] A person whose conduct is blameworthy may not cause harm, yet he could be worthy of retributive punishment.[7] A person’s conduct may accidentally result in great harm despite not having done anything wrong, yet this person could be worthy of retaliatory punishment.[8]
Restorative justice arose out of a deep dissatisfaction with traditional criminal justice systems, and as an alternative to retributive justice. Restorative justice “emphasizes the need to understand crime or harm done in terms of the social actors involved or affected: offenders/victimizers, victims, and communities. In order to restore the damage done, the interests and needs of all three should be addressed.”[9]
According to social scientist Jon Elster, transitional justice consists of “the processes of trials, purges, and reparations that take place after the transition from one political regime to another.”[10] Its aim is ‘‘the transition from a society divided by the chaos, illegality and injustices of the past to one in which democracy and the rule of law are the leading and binding principles of stability.”[11] The practices of transitional justice are currently affected by a “mixture of local actors, national governments, the UN and other international organizations, bilateral donors, and national and international non-governmental organizations.”[12]
Retributive justice and restorative justice are compatible. According to legal scholars García-Godos and Lekha Sriram: “Retributive and restorative processes are ideally not in opposition or alternative to one another, but rather elements of a more coherent and sustainable approach to transitional justice and peace-building.”[13] In frameworks of transitional justice, both retributive and restorative justice measures can feature as long as both guarantee a successful transition from one political order to another. The Colombian Peace Treaty has ratified a transitional justice framework that undermines the harshness of retributive sentencing to ensure the fulfillment of the victims’ rights (to truth, reparation and a guarantee of no repetition), and to ensure the demobilization of the FARC-EP, a guerrilla group that was not defeated after a 52 year armed conflict. I will give a historical overview of the Colombian Armed Conflict to explain why these guerrillas were not defeated and to highlight the events that led to the current peace negotiations.
A History of the Colombian Armed Conflict
After a civil war, La Violencia (1948-57), the Liberal and Conservative Parties agreed in 1957 to share power for 16 years. The coalition resulted in a regime called the National Front. However, there was soon an insurgency on the part of left-wing guerrilla groups that were not adequately represented by the National Front and that were dissatisfied with the Front’s failure to reform land tenure in Colombia.[14] The exact origins of the FARC-EP, the largest and oldest guerrilla group, are murky. The event that seems to have accelerated its emergence is the attack on Marquetalia on May 1964.[15] The FARC-EP claims that the Government committed this attack against the peasant population and so framed their military campaign as “one of legitimate self-defense,” invoking the “right to rebellion.”[16] According to some of the generals that participated in this operation, however, the attack on Marquetalia took place after the start of the fighting against the FARC-EP, which according to them emerged in 1963.[17] Nevertheless, it is clear that the birth of the FARC-EP was linked to problems of socio-economic inequality that the National Front failed to solve.
Between 1982 and 1995, the expansion of guerrillas, the propagation of drug trafficking, and the eruption of paramilitary groups increased violence in Colombia.[18] The origin of paramilitary groups is linked to 1965 laws that enabled landowners to have private security.[19] Modern paramilitary groups emerged in the early 1990s, however, after a new law allowed the creation of self-defense groups to counterattack left-wing guerrillas, among them the FARC-EP.[20] They were sponsored not just by landowners, but also by business elites, parts of the security forces, and drug traffickers.[21] Later organized under the banner Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, they became one of the most violent actors in the Colombian Armed Conflict.[22] Despite their divergent origins and their opposition to one another, the FARC-EP and the paramilitary groups have both contributed to violence and terror in the country’s rural areas. The paramilitary militias, however, were disproportionately more responsible for selective killings and massacres, although both groups engaged in these actions.[23] Ultimately, both sides have committed grave crimes against civilians and indulged in drug trafficking, which makes both of them subject to criminal charges by international standards.
Former Presidents Belisario Betancur (1982-86), Virgilio Barco (1986-90), César Gaviria (1990-94) and Ernesto Samper (1994-98) failed in their attempted peace negotiations with the FARC-EP. President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) was also elected on a peace negotiation platform, but under his government, the FARC-EP used kidnappings in order to negotiate the release of imprisoned guerrillas and to extort wealthy families.[24] Overall, the FARC-EP, along with other guerrillas, ended up committing more kidnappings than the paramilitary militias.[25] The FARC-EP kidnappings led Colombian society, until then in favor of peace negotiations, to support a military solution to the Colombian Armed Conflict.[26] The result was the election of Alvaro Uribe Vélez in May 2002, who ran his campaign on a platform that promised the militaristic defeat of the guerrillas.[27]
The Uribe government did attempt negotiations with both the AUC and the guerrillas. Negotiations with the AUC led to a marked decline in the rate of massacres and homicides due to the demobilization of the main AUC leaders, but they did not achieve “permanent results” given the “internal heterogeneity” and “lack of consensus” within the group.[28] In contrast to negotiations with paramilitaries, Uribe achieved little with the guerrillas. Indeed, while Uribe demanded a ceasefire as a prerequisite to negotiations, the FARC-EP requested a demilitarized zone where they could concentrate their combatants. Uribe’s attempts to recapture territory from the FARC-EP, on the other hand, unleashed the greatest political, militaristic, and juridical offensive against the guerrillas in the history of the Colombian Armed conflict.[29] While this offensive resulted in the army recapturing control of the regions most integrated politically and economically, and drastically reduced the military capacity of the guerrillas, it had high costs that weighed on both taxes for Colombians and the lives of innocent civilians.[30] Furthermore, the Uribe government put pressures and incentives on the army that lead to 2701 victims of “false positive” cases, in which soldiers murdered peasant civilians and dressed them as FARC-EP members to affect statistics.[31] Ultimately, Uribe’s offensive against the FARC-EP did not eliminate the guerrillas, who adapted to the increasingly asymmetrical dynamic of the conflict.
In August 2010 Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe’s Minister of Defense, was elected President. Since Uribe had failed to exterminate the FARC-EP, Santos began an exploratory phase of confidential peace negotiations with them.[32] The FARC-EP likely agreed to negotiations due to their unpopularity amongst the Colombian population. They even unilaterally freed all of the kidnapped and publicly declared in February 2012 that they would refrain from extortive kidnapping.[33] On August 26th 2012, the FARC-EP and the Santos government signed the document General Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Durable Peace, ending the first phase of exploratory negotiations.[34] During a second round of peace negotiations in La Havana, Cuba, the Government and the FARC-EP developed a 6 point agenda that ultimately became the Final Agreement that was signed on August 24, 2016.
The Three Sanctions of the Justice Provision
When Colombian negotiators were developing a framework of transitional justice, they had to keep in mind the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Statute forbids impunity “in the limited meaning of bringing perpetrators to trial” for perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.[35] The ICC can summon to court any country that provided amnesty to a perpetrator of these crimes after July 1st 2002, provided that said country has signed the Statute, which Colombia has.[36]
The Government and the FARC-EP each appointed three specialists in law and human rights to write the “Victims Agreement,” the fifth point in the agenda. When writing this document, the six specialists had to ensure that the Agreement was not just compatible with the Rome Statute’s prohibition of impunity, but that it would also respect victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of no repetition. Given the length of the Colombian Armed Conflict and the country’s inability to militaristically defeat the FARC-EP, these specialists developed a transitional justice framework that would allow certain armed actors in the conflict to become civilians. This resulted in the “Victims Agreement” introducing the “Special Jurisdiction for Peace,” a legal document that sets out the protocol for sentencing perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes. The “Special Jurisdiction” will forgive amnestiable crimes (for example, stealing the uniform of a member of the military) by not imposing any sanctions so long as perpetrators say the truth and assume responsibility[37]. Amnestiable crimes are forgivable under international law. To avoid ICC charges of impunity for non-amnestiable crimes, however, these specialists developed three different sanctions, all containing punitive provisions, even though two of the sanctions are mainly retributive while one is mainly restorative:
Sanctions Inherent to the System (Inherent Sanctions) will apply to those who provide exhaustive and detailed accounts of truth in the Room for the Recognition of Truth and Responsibilities before their trial begins, so as to enable victims to access their right to truth. While these sanctions maintain a punitive element, “restrictions of freedoms and rights, such as the freedom of residence and movement” for perpetrators, they will mainly have a “restorative and reparative content.”[38] Indeed, perpetrators who receive these sanctions will have to repair damages they inflicted by doing things like eradicating explosive war remains and antipersonnel mines.[39]
Alternative Sanctions will apply to those who only recognize truth and assume responsibility later than those who receiving the Inherent Sanctions. These sanctions are retributive, and call for 5 to 8 years in prison.[40]
Ordinary Sanctions will apply to those who do not recognize truth and responsibility before the Tribunal for Peace and who are declared guilty by it. These sanctions comply with the sentences of the Penal Code. The privation of liberty will not be inferior to 15 years or superior to 20 “in cases of grave infractions or violations.”[41]
Local and International Opposition
While Inherent Sanctions are meant to make it easier for victims to access the truth, reparation, and guarantees of no repetition, local and international organizations have taken issue with these sanctions. Indeed, perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes who receive an Inherent Sanction won’t go to prison and will be allowed to run for office before the end of their sentences. Local and international groups oppose Inherent Sanctions because they believe that perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes should receive a punishment proportional to the blameworthiness of their actions, and they consider Inherent Sanctions to not be proportional. (Amnesty International also claims that the agreement appears to fall short on international law standards on victims’ right to truth and reparation).[42]
Local Opposition
One of the main sources of local opposition to the Peace Treaty comes from former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his party, Centro Democrático (Democratic Centre). Uribe has many issues with the Final Agreement and has provided various arguments against it. Uribe and his party have rallied around the demand for a “just peace” or “peace without impunity.”[43] Since perpetrators who receive Inherent Sanctions won’t have to go to prison, despite the fact that their freedom and movement will be restricted, Uribe and his party do not think that the Inherent Sanction is adequately punishing these perpetrators and so that it allows them to benefit from impunity. Furthermore, Uribe disapproves of the fact that these perpetrators will be able to be elected to office while still serving their sentences.[44]
Uribe’s position is paradoxical since in 2003 he proposed a bill, the “Alternative Penalties Law,” that would’ve provided amnesty for all demobilized armed actors. His argument was restorative; it asserted that criminal punishment would not contribute to reconciliation.[45] In this same year, Uribe did not oppose the political eligibility of perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes who demobilized and suggested that they could be directly named in public office roles.[46] National and international human rights organizations, victims’ organizations, and some political groups criticized the 2003 bill, and Congress rejected it. After Congress rejected it, Uribe proposed Law 975 of 2005, which eventually facilitated the demobilization of paramilitary groups.[47] It was not because of Uribe that the original bill was changed to include sanctions that prevented impunity.[48] Rather, the opponents of the 2003 bill forced Uribe to incorporate retributive elements into Law 975 of 2005, making his current position paradoxical, and thus invalid.
Does Law 975 of 2005 forbid anything like the Inherent Sanction in the Final Agreement with the FARC-EP? Law 975 imposes an alternative sanction of 5 to 8 years in prison on demobilized paramilitary groups that have committed grave crimes but that confess their crimes and contribute to the reparation of victims. Unlike what Law 975 requires, the Inherent Sanctions that the Special Jurisdiction will impose on perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes will not require these perpetrators to serve time in prison. Since they do not require imprisonment, are Inherent Sanctions equivalent to impunity? Even if benefactors of Inherent Sanctions will not go to prison, they will still receive a punishment: the restriction of freedom and movement during the time of restorative actions. Inherent Sanctions, while mainly restorative, will still contain a punishment, and so are not equivalent to impunity.
International Opposition
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch question if Inherent Sanctions will be retributive enough under international law. Amnesty International’s position is retaliatory, for they claim that justice will not be served to perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes who are given Inherent Sanctions because these sanctions are not proportionate to the severity of the crimes they committed.[49] Human Rights Watch’ position is both retributive and retaliatory. Their stance is retributive when they claim that the sanctions in the December 15th 2015 Agreement “do not reflect accepted standards of appropriate punishment for grave violations,” making it “impossible that Colombia will meet its binding obligations under international law to ensure accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes.”[50] They take a retaliatory stance when they claim that “Colombia has an obligation under international law to provide punishment for human rights violations and serious violations of the laws of war that are proportionate to the gravity of the crimes.”[51] They believe that imprisonment is a punishment that is proportionate both to the gravity of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and to the blameworthiness of the perpetrator. According to them, a lack of imprisonment is equivalent to Inherent Sanctions lacking a punitive element, which Amnesty International also suggests.
It is true that the “Victims Agreement” doesn’t provide a retributive or retaliatory punishment for the perpetrator of non-amnestiable crimes receiving an Inherent Sanction, but a reduction of punitiveness is not the absence of punishment. Since impunity refers to an “exemption from punishment” or an “immunity from the detrimental effects of one’s actions,” and since Inherent Sanctions will still have a punitive element in them (restrictions of freedom and movement), these Inherent Sanctions are not compatible with impunity.[52] The concessions, in the form of Inherent Sanctions, that the Special Jurisdiction of Peace provide for perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes who declare truth and assume responsibility are therefore not blanket amnesties, and so they are compatible with the ICC’s standards.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both invoke the Rome Statute of the ICC when criticizing the Inherent Sanction. Yet the ICC is only meant to complement national criminal jurisdictions. In other words, the ICC will exercise its jurisdiction over perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes only when national criminal jurisdictions fail to do so.[53] Furthermore, the ICC claims that, in reference to it persecuting perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes, “nothing (…) shall affect the responsibility of a Government to maintain or re-establish law and order in the State or to defend the unity and territorial integrity of the State, by all legitimate means.”[54] On top of that, on September 1st 2016, Fatou Bensouda, a prosecutor for the ICC, released the following statement: “I welcome the announcement of the final peace agreement as a critical step toward ending this protracted conflict.”[55] Bensouda states that the ‘‘importance of genuine accountability—which by definition includes effective punishment—in nurturing a sustainable peace cannot be overstated’’ and claims that ‘‘the final text of the peace agreement excludes amnesties and pardons for crimes against humanity and war crimes under the Rome Statute.”[56] Bensouda’s statement further proves that none of the three sanctions in the Final Agreement provides impunity, thereby discrediting the retributive and retaliatory positions of both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Finally, proponents of a form of retributive or retaliatory punishment must recall that the Armed Colombian Conflict has lasted for more than 52 years. Given this history, a framework of transitional justice with a stronger emphasis on restorative, as opposed to retributive, justice was chosen because transitional justice is “a justice created in a state in order to help overcome the systematic and prolonged violations of human rights that ordinary justice failed to overcome.”[57] Furthermore, the Peace Treaty is meant to ensure the complete demobilization of the FARC-EP, a guerrilla group that has not been defeated after 52 years. According to Jemima García-Godos and Chandra Lekha Sriram: “It may be necessary to seek a compromise that balances demands for justice with the need for DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants).”[58] Since a guarantee of no repetition is imperative, some concessions may be necessary, involving reducing the punitiveness in the sanction of the perpetrators of non-amnestiable crimes who declare truth and assume responsibility.
Conclusion
At the end of The Oresteia, the Furies have to make concessions and accept the verdict that acquits Orestes of the murder of his mother in the hopes of preventing a never-ending cycle of bloodshed. Similarly in Colombia, the Government has had to make concessions in the intensity of punishments within their transitional justice framework to ensure a long-lasting peace. The following question, which has puzzled both Ancient Greeks and Colombians, is now left to readers: should a retributive punishment always be categorically applied to perpetrators of grave crimes in an armed conflict, or should we allow a reduction in the punishment or an elimination of retributive justice as long as this can guarantee a lasting peace and ensure that victims have access to other rights, such as truth and reparation?
The Upcoming Plebiscite
The plebiscite will take place on October 2, 2016 for Colombian citizens. Colombians living outside of the country will be able to vote as long as they have registered their citizenship card to the Colombian embassy or consulate of the city they are in.[59] The country is divided when it comes to their support of the “Final Agreement.” Santos, who ran his 2014 reelection campaign by promoting this peace agreement, barely won with 50.95% of the votes (the other candidate, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, got 45%).[60] Furthermore, as of August 17, 2016, 32.3% of respondents say they will vote “yes,” 29.1% will vote “no,” 26.9% will abstain from voting, and 9.9% are currently undecided:[61]
Footnotes
[1] Jon Elster. Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3.
[2] Aeschylus. The Oresteian Trilogy. (Toronto, Canada: The Penguin Group, 1959), 181.
[3] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 19.
[4] Alec Walen. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2015 ed., s. v. “Retributive Justice”. Stanford: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2015. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/justice-retributive/.
[5] Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage, 3rd ed. s. v. “Retribution.”
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Jemima García-Godos and Chandra Lekha Sriram. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 1-19. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 6.
[10] Jon Elster. Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1.
[11] Chrisje Brants. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice: Images and Memories, edited by Chrisje Brants, Antoine Hol and Dina Siegel, 1-12. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013), 3.
[12] Jemima García-Godos and Chandra Lekha Sriram. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 1-19. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 2.
[13] Ibid., 7.
[14] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 112.
[15] Ibid., 121.
[16] International Crisis Group. On Thinner Ice: The Final Phase of Colombia’s Peace Talks. Briefing no. 32 (2015): 10-1, accessed September 5, 2016, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/b32-on-thinner-ice-the-final-phase-of-colombia-s-peace-talks.pdf.
[17] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 121.
[18] Ibid., 33.
[19] Jemima García-Godos. “Colombia: Accountability and DDR in the pursuit of peace?.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 219-33. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 220.
[20] Ibid., 221.
[21] International Crisis Group. Transitional Justice and Colombia’s Peace Talks. Report no. 49 (2013): 20-1, accessed September 5, 2016, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/transitional-justice-and-colombia-s-peace-talks.pdf.
[22] Jemima García-Godos. “Colombia: Accountability and DDR in the pursuit of peace?.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 219-33. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 221.
[23] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 43-7.
[24] Ibid., 68.
[25] Ibid., 65.
[26] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 68.
[27] Maria José Guembe and Helena Olea. “No Justice, No Peace: Discussion of a Legal Framework regarding the Demobilization of Non-state Armed Groups in Colombia.” In Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice, edited by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena, 120-42. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 124.
[28] GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. (Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013), 68.
[29] Ibid., 178-80.
[30] Ibid., 179.
[31] Ibid., 178.
[32] Ibid., 179.
[33] Ibid., 182.
[34] Gobierno de Colombia. “Mesa de conversaciones con las FARC-EP.” Alto Comisionado Para la Paz. http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/procesos-y-conversaciones/Paginas/mesa-de-conversaciones-con-las-farc-ep.aspx. (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
[35] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (2002): 1. https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf.
[36] Naomi Roht-Arriaza. “The new landscape of transitional justice.” In Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice, edited by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena, 1-16. Cambridge, (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7.
[37] Acuerdo Final Para La Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera. August 24, 2016: 258. http://www.eltiempo.com/contenido/politica/proceso-de-paz/ARCHIVO/ARCHIVO-16682558-0.pdf.
[38] Ibid., 152.
[39] Ibid.,153-4.
[40] Ibid., 154.
[41] Ibid.,155.
[42] Amnesty International. COLOMBIA 2015/2016. (2016): 122-27, accessed September 5, 2016, https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/colombia/report-colombia/.
[43] International Crisis Group. Transitional Justice and Colombia’s Peace Talks. Report no. 49 (2015): 14, accessed September 5, 2016, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/transitional-justice-and-colombia-s-peace-talks.pdf.
[44] Rodrigo Uprimny. “Paz y elegibilidad política.” El Espectador, August 20, 2016, accessed September 5, 2016, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/paz-y-elegibilidad-politica.
[45] Jemima García-Godos. “Colombia: Accountability and DDR in the pursuit of peace?.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 219-33. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 222.
[46] Rodrigo Uprimny. “Paz y elegibilidad política.” El Espectador, August 20, 2016, accessed September 5, 2016, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/paz-y-elegibilidad-politica.
[47] Rodrigo Uprimny. “El Uribismo, La Paz Y La Impunidad.” El Espectador, July 26, 2014, accessed September 5, 2016, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/el-uribismo-paz-y-impunidad-columna-506871.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Amnesty International. COLOMBIA 2015/2016. (2016): 122-27, accessed September 5, 2016. https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/colombia/report-colombia/.
[50] Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch Analysis of Colombia-FARC Agreement. (2015), accessed September 5, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/21/human-rights-watch-analysis-colombia-farc-agreement.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Black’s Law Dictionary, 10th ed., s. v. “Impunity.”
[53] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (2002): 1. https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Fatou Bensouda. “Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on the conclusion of the peace negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army.” September 1, 2016, https://www.icc-cpi.int//Pages/item.aspx?name=160901-otp-stat-colombia
[56] Ibid.
[57] Juan Carlos Henao. Interview by José Camargo. Montreal, July 11, 2016.
[58] Jemima García-Godos and Chandra Lekha Sriram. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 1-19. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 10.
[59] Diario de las Américas. “Colombianos en el extranjero podrán votar en el plebiscito sobre acuerdos de paz.” Diario de las Américas. August 15, 2016, accessed September 5, 2016, http://www.diariolasamericas.com/florida/colombianos-el-extranjero-podran-votar-el-plebiscito-acuerdos-paz-n4100552.
[60] El Tiempo. “Las Claves Del Triunfo De Santos Y Lo Que Viene Para El Presidente.” El Tiempo, June 16, 2014, accessed September 5, 2016, http://m.eltiempo.com/politica/partidos-politicos/las-claves-del-triunfo-de-santos-y-lo-que-viene-para-el-presidente/14123803.[61] El Tiempo. “El ‘sí’ por el plebiscito a la paz se vuelve a imponer en encuestas. ” El Tiempo, August 18, 2016, sccessed September 5, 2016, http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/proceso-de-paz/resultados-de-encuesta-de-eltiempo-para-plebiscito-por-la-paz/16676416.
Works Cited
Books:
Aeschylus. The Oresteian Trilogy. Toronto, Canada: The Penguin Group, 1959.
Brants, Chrisje. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice: Images and Memories, edited by Chrisje Brants, Antoine Hol and Dina Siegel. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013.
Elster, Jon. Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
García-Godos, Jemima, and Chandra Lekha Sriram. “Introduction.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013.
García-Godos, Jemima. “Colombia: Accountability and DDR in the pursuit of peace?.” In Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and ex-combatants, edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega, 219-33. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013.
GMH. ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad. Bogotá, Colombia: Imprenta Nacional, 2013.
Guembe, Maria José, and Helena Olea. “No Justice, No Peace: Discussion of a Legal Framework regarding the Demobilization of Non-state Armed Groups in Colombia.” In Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice, edited by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena, 120-42. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. “The new landscape of transitional justice.” In Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice, edited by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Javier Mariezcurrena, 1-16. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Final Agreement:
Acuerdo Final Para La Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera. August 24, 2016. https://www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co/sites/default/files/24_08_2016acuerdofinalfinalfinal-1472094587.pdf (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Law:
Law 975 of 2005. Congress of the Republic of Colombia (CRC). https://www.cejil.org/sites/default/files/ley_975_de_2005_0.pdf (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Law Dictionaries:
Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage. Third ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Garner, Bryan A. Black’s Law Dictionary. Tenth ed. St. Paul, MN: Thomson Reuters, 2014.
Newspaper Articles:
Diario de las Américas. “Colombianos en el extranjero podrán votar en el plebiscito sobre acuerdos de paz.” Diario de las Américas. August 15, 2016. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.diariolasamericas.com/florida/colombianos-el-extranjero-podran-votar-el-plebiscito-acuerdos-paz-n4100552
El Tiempo. “Las Claves Del Triunfo De Santos Y Lo Que Viene Para El Presidente.” El Tiempo, June 16, 2014. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://m.eltiempo.com/politica/partidos-politicos/las-claves-del-triunfo-de-santos-y-lo-que-viene-para-el-presidente/14123803.
El Tiempo. “El ‘sí’ por el plebiscito a la paz se vuelve a imponer en encuestas. ” El Tiempo, August 18, 2016. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/proceso-de-paz/resultados-de-encuesta-de-eltiempo-para-plebiscito-por-la-paz/16676416
Newman, Vivian. “Penas útiles.” El Espectador, July 29, 2016. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/penas-utiles.
Uprimny, Rodrigo. “El Uribismo, La Paz Y La Impunidad.” El Espectador, July 26, 2014. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/el-uribismo-paz-y-impunidad-columna-506871.
Uprimny, Rodrigo. “Paz y elegibilidad política.” El Espectador, August 20, 2016. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/paz-y-elegibilidad-politica.
NGO Reports:
Amnesty International. “COLOMBIA.” Amnesty International Report 2015/16 (2016): 122-27. Accessed September 5, 2016. https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/colombia/report-colombia/.
Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch Analysis of Colombia-FARC Agreement.” (2015). Accessed September 5, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/21/human-rights-watch-analysis-colombia-farc-agreement.
International Crisis Group. On Thinner Ice: The Final Phase of Colombia’s Peace Talks. Briefing no. 32. (2015): 1-19. Accessed September 5, 2016. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/b32-on-thinner-ice-the-final-phase-of-colombia-s-peace-talks.pdf.
International Crisis Group. Transitional Justice and Colombia’s Peace Talks. Report no. 49. (2013): 1-55. Accessed September 5, 2016. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/transitional-justice-and-colombia-s-peace-talks.pdf.
Statement:
Bensouda, Fatou. “Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on the conclusion of the peace negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army.” September 1, 2016. https://www.icc-cpi.int//Pages/item.aspx?name=160901-otp-stat-colombia. (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Statute:
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. July 1, 2002, https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf. (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Unpublished Interview:
Henao, Juan Carlos. Interview by José Camargo. Montreal, July 11, 2016.
Websites:
Gobierno de Colombia. “Mesa de conversaciones con las FARC-EP.” Alto Comisionado Para la Paz. http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/procesos-y-conversaciones/Paginas/mesa-de-conversaciones-con-las-farc-ep.aspx. (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Walen, Alec. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2015 ed., s. v. “Retributive Justice”. Stanford: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2015. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/justice-retributive/.
Works Consulted
Newspaper Articles:
Newman, Vivian. “Penas útiles.” El Espectador, July 29, 2016. Accessed September 5, 2016. http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/penas-utiles.
Laws:
Law 975 of 2005. Congress of the Republic of Colombia (CRC). https://www.cejil.org/sites/default/files/ley_975_de_2005_0.pdf (Accessed 5 September, 2015).
Unpublished Interviews:
Newman, Vivian. Interview by José Camargo. Montreal, July 2016.
The featured image is courtesy of Gloria Ortega Pérez.
Edited by Max Binks-Collier.