The emergence of human rights as an element in national politics and international relations was one of the surprises of the last decades of the twentieth century. It began even before the end of the long Cold War, and with the dismantling of that massive ideological edifice it gathered momentum into our new millennium. It has been a global story, but one in which, as history would have it, Latin America played a leading role. Even within this one world region it is a complex story, involving unprecedented movements in civil society, major social institutions, broad regional democratisation, new intra-governmental bodies and transnational non-governmental networks.
Sonia Cardenas synthesises the story of human rights in Latin America in this very good short book, which admirably fulfils her goal of ‘a concise and comprehensive introduction’ to the subject ‘for students of human rights and Latin America’ (p. 12). Its structure is well defined, and her clear, direct prose takes little background for granted. The book conveys an impressive amount of basic information throughout, aptly employing summary charts and tables as well as five appendices. Its description of human rights history over the last four decades is sound, and Cardenas illustrates common and diverging patterns across the region through more in-depth treatment of some dozen countries. Under three broad headings – ‘Violating Rights’, ‘Promoting Reform’ and ‘Securing Justice' – the book manages to encompass in compact form a great deal of the complex range of phenomena that we associate with human rights in contemporary Latin America.
Cardenas' chapter on ‘Explaining Violations’ justifiably emphasises the rights of physical integrity that have largely defined the focus of human rights advocacy, but she also recognises the relevance of social, economic and cultural rights (such as those relating to discrimination against women or indigenous groups) here and in later chapters. Her treatment of ‘Global Governance’ usefully describes the United Nations and Inter-American human rights regimes, albeit with a formalism that leaves an overly rosy impression of their functioning and effectiveness. A chapter on ‘Transnational Networks’ presents a clear and sophisticated analysis of this complex phenomenon, properly highlighting its fundamental contribution to the surprising human rights story in the region. A following chapter addresses ‘Human Rights Change’ in light of broader developments and regional variations; although it considers several ‘models’ of change, it concludes eloquently with the observation that, ‘At the end of the day’ the force behind human rights change is ‘ordinary people's empathy for the way other human beings are treated, their willingness to mobilize for the rights of others’ (p. 154).
The penultimate chapter on ‘Confronting Past Abuse’ presents an introduction to truth commissions and human rights trials, but suffers from a few odd judgments and, perhaps inevitably, omits some important recent developments. Cardenas misinterprets the circumstances of Chile's 1980 Constitution, 1988 plebiscite and ‘Aylwin Doctrine’ (pp. 137, 138 and 176 respectively). The extradition, trial and conviction of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori for human rights crimes (2005–9) – watershed events by any measure – are shoehorned into a brief paragraph (p. 181). Colombia's official Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (2005–present), which has produced path-breaking reports on major human rights massacres in conditions of ongoing political and criminal violence, is omitted entirely; so too is the Chilean Valech Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture (2004–5), a national and international milestone. Cardenas gives far less attention to human rights memorials than they deserve – at a minimum as a form of symbolic reparation, more maximally as steps toward the formation of ‘human rights cultures’. She does not discuss at all the large academic field of ‘historical memory’ that has grown up largely in response to state violations of human rights.
Despite these shortcomings, the book as a whole succeeds in maintaining a balance between several different tensions in the complicated and surprising story it recounts. One of these tensions is between the violation of human rights and their defence, mirrored in the ‘terror and hope’ of its subtitle. Cardenas correctly notes that most people ‘tend to think of violations when they think about human rights’ (p. 22), but she is right to insist on covering the significant and unprecedented response from the human rights movement to such state violence. That is truer history and, one would think, better pedagogy: the light with the dark. The other tension in her analysis involves the aspirations of the human rights cause, with which Cardenas unabashedly identifies, and the hard evidence of what has limited its achievements, which she aims to explain as a political scientist. Through this book her voice emerges as that of a determined but clear-eyed optimist, willing to confront the dark realities of politics and power but inclining toward what another Latin Americanist, Albert Hirschman, adopted as ‘a bias for hope’.
These qualities – together with the book's range, from the dramas of individual human lives to the driest language in legal covenants – make Human Rights in Latin America well suited to undergraduate teaching. Instructors will find helpful the ‘Questions and Debate’ section (for example, ‘What are the advantages and disadvantages of a minimalist definition of human rights?’, p. 14), print and film bibliography, useful websites, and source footnotes after each chapter, as they will the appendices at the end of the book on, for example, ‘Select Internship Opportunities’ for students and ‘Suggested Assignments for Instructors’. Although its price may limit widespread adoption as a textbook, this volume should immediately become an indispensable reference in university libraries. In all, it is a remarkable compact synthesis on this sprawling subject.
