The Rule of Law in Transitional Justice: The Fujimori Trial in Peru

Abstract

The past decade has seen an increased global interest in the rule of law in post-conflict and transitional societies.1 Economic analysts, human rights activists and security consultants all agree that the rule of law is important, albeit for their own respective causes. In this way, the rule of law enjoys a “sudden elevation as a panacea for the ills of countries in transition from dictatorships or statist economies…”2 The focus on the rule of law in these settings adds to a growing movement since the 1970s in which a handful of countries emerging from dictatorial, repressive and authoritarian regimes resorted to a variety of mechanisms to address systematic and widespread violation of human rights and the breakdown of the rule of law. Their collective experience gave rise to what is now considered the field of “transitional justice.”