El Salvador: Experts call for implementation of transitional justice agenda related to armed conflict
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Multiple Mechanisms
14 January 2025
GENEVA -- Independent human rights experts* are urging the Government of El Salvador to move forward with the transitional justice agenda to remedy the harm suffered by victims of serious human rights violations and crimes perpetrated during the armed conflict.
16 January 2025 marks 33 years since the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords that put an end to 12 years of armed conflict in El Salvador, in which more than 75,000 people were tortured, extrajudicially executed or forcibly disappeared, according to the UN-backed Truth Commission. "The anniversary of the Accord is an important reminder of the harm suffered by Salvadoran society, compounded by decades of impunity and insufficient reparations, and of the need to adequately address it through a holistic transitional justice process," the experts said.
"Although the Accords gave rise to a series of institutional reforms aimed at setting in motion a peace process underpinned by the rule of law, today the effects of the incomplete implementation of the transitional justice process, including the absence of effective policies for the search for and criminal investigation of missing persons, obstacles in access to military archives, and insufficient processes of reparation and historical memory, in addition to the ongoing narrowing of civic space that affects journalists, victims, and civil society organizations" they added.
Eight years after the sentence that declared the 1993 Amnesty Law unconstitutional, the adoption of a normative framework for transitional justice that guarantees access to justice, information and integral reparation for victims of the conflict is also still pending, despite the proposals by victims and civil society.
In 2020, the former Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition issued a report on his official visit to El Salvador and presented a diagnosis of the measures adopted 27 years after the end of the conflict. The report examines the progress and worrying shortcomings in the transitional justice agenda and proposes a roadmap for the country, with the support of the international community.
"However, the vast majority of these recommendations have not been implemented," the experts said, noting that many of the recommendations made respectively by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances following their visits to the country also remain to be implemented.
"On the anniversary of the Agreement we invite relevant institutions to reactivate this agenda with a view to resolving violations that were committed during the armed conflict and contemporary problems arising from it. It is unacceptable that those responsible for so many crimes of the recent past, including at least 200 massacres of civilians, remain unpunished. In light of this, the adoption of comprehensive transitional justice approaches, victim-centered and anchored in past and present challenges, offer the best opportunity to redress for victims, and to achieve reconciliation and sustainable peace and development," they said.
"We support efforts made so far, including in the case of the 'Jesuit massacre' and in the recent decision to open for trial the case for the execution of four Dutch journalists," the experts said. "However, much remains to be done, in cooperation with civil society and victims. The roadmap is designed, and our mandates stand ready to accompany efforts for its implementation."
*The experts: Bernard Duhaime, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions; and Gabriella Citroni (Chair-Rapporteur), Grażyna Baranowska (Vice-Chair), Aua Baldé, Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, and Mohammed Al-Obaidi, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
The Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and Working Groups are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures' experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
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