Inter-American Court of Human Rights' reparation judgments ...

30 Revista IIDH[Vol. 49Finally, this work will provide a holistic look at the evolution of severalelements of reparations in the inter-American system and will proposethat integral reparations should be intimately linked with the combating ofimpunity as a final goal and necessarily from the perspective of the victims.Reparations without justice are not reparatory and the wider socialpoliticalstruggles for justice and against impunity and specific psychosocialinterventions need to be increasingly consonant and integrated ina unified strategy. 2In spite of the existence of relevant international standards...the perspective of the victim is often overlooked.It appears that many authorities consider this perspectivea complication, an inconvenience and a marginal phenomenon.Theo van BovenGross Human Rights violations patterns in LatinAmerica and the role of international tribunals in conflictmanagement and peacebuilding processesImpunity, an institutionalized process in most countries in LatinAmerica, is a symbolic register of the “perverse”. Tortures, forceddisappearances, and the indigenous genocide in the whole Americaare certainly cruel and well-known pervasive facts. In most of thecases they have been unpunished enforcing the socialized idea thateverything is allowed, even the total and absurd reification of thehuman being.The conquest and colonization processes on the American continentrepresent a paradigmatic model of that, gross violations whichwere never appropriately addressed or repaired and have broken thecommunity’s political spirit, solidarity and mutual reciprocity. 3 Thisimpunity has unconsciously legitimized the abuse of the structural and2 Lykes and Mersky, in: De Greiff, P., The Handbook of Reparations. TheInternational Center for Transitional Justice, Oxford University Press, US, 2006,p. 616.3 Donoso, G., “Memoria e identidad. La subjetividad y las leyes de la cultura”, in:Acheronta Revista de Psicoanálisis y Cultura (online magazine < http://www.acheronta.org/>), No. 18, 2003.