Contesting after the law
Subtitle: determinations and possiblities in trials for past wrongs : the case of Argentina
By: by Mario Di Paloantonio.
Published: 2003
Language: eng
Number of pages: 310
Subjects: Democracy -- Argentina.; State-sponsored terrorism -- Argentina.; Disappeared persons -- Argentina.; Justice, Administration of -- Argentina.; Reconciliation -- Argentina.; Theories of Justice, Reconciliation, Transitional Democracy; Argentina -- History -- 1955-1983.; Argentina -- History -- 1983-2002.
Description: Abstract

Contesting after the law

© 2003, Mario Di Paolantonio
PhD dissertation
University of Toronto

As the military’s hold on power disintegrated and democracy began to establish itself in Argentina (1983), it became obvious that the very fabric of the social was riddled by the overwhelming political violence endured under the dictatorship. In an attempt to come to terms with the haunting absences and silences produced by the repressive state strategy of disappearances, and as a way of symbolically marking the turn to democracy, an investigatory/legal process was set in motion. This led to the prosecution of military leaders deemed responsible for planning and commanding various human rights abuses. Through a series of presidential decrees and pardons, the convictions and precedent established by the so-called 1985 “trial of the military” was effectively contained and overturned in the name of reconciliation. After more than a decade of contesting the state’s “containment strategy,” which effectively barred further prosecutions and investigations that could implicate the military with the past human rights violations, rights groups successfully convinced the courts (in 2001) to overturn the “amnesty laws.” Consequently, reopening the way for bringing various military figures before the law. 

This study seeks to track the symbolic role that law plays in the varying phases of the transition to democracy in Argentina. It does so by drawing out the constitutive tension that exists between (i.) the state’s force to found, conserve and contain the indeterminacy of law, and (ii.) the force of the political that exceeds and checks the constriction of the state by reanimating (through the call for justice) the indeterminacy instituted by the inauguration of democracy. Working through the logic of this tension will allow us develop the particular and peculiar details that came to structure the possibility of once more reactivating the law to address the unsettled past. The dissertation thus offers a philosophical and descriptive account of how the demand for legal recall —expressed through the dissatisfaction and aspirations amid civil society— was structured against the force of containment. More specifically, the study reflects on how the unfulfilled promises of the “trial of the military” helped to shape a legacy, a pedagogical resource, which was utilized to contest the conciliatory politics and settlements brokered by the state.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)-- University of Toronto, 2003.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-310)
Table of contents: class: section