The Colombian Armed Conflict and the Transnational Ordering of Criminal Justice
Manuel Iturralde
Abstract
On October 2 of 2016, Colombian voters rejected a landmark peace agreement between the government and the FARC, a Marxist guerrilla organization, to put an end to the oldest armed conflict in the western hemisphere. In an extremely close result, 50.2% of the electorate voted against it. One of the key points of the agreement was the punishment of guerrilla fighters who committed war crimes. Ex-combatants who fully confessed to their crimes, asked for forgiveness and repaired the victims would have been granted more lenient sentences (5 to 8 years that would not be served in prison). Those who criticized the agreement (among them Colombian right-wing political parties, but also national and international NGOs and organizations), vehemently opposed this kind of justice, claiming that it was an antidemocratic expression of impunity, an insult to the victims, and that it violated the Colombian Constitution, as well as international human rights standards and treaties that bind the Colombian state.
Through the study of the Colombian case, this paper will discuss how the international agenda on different, but closely related, crime control topics (such as the wars on drugs and against terrorism, the strengthening of the rule of law and democratic regimes through crime control institutions, the penal treatment of war criminals) plays a key role in defining the available options that a country has to achieve significant political and social transformations. I will argue that such agenda, and the scholarly debate that surrounds it, have been predominantly set by global north countries and scholars, who tend to impose their worldviews and interests. Such state of affairs is problematic and must be challenged, not only because it is one-sided and reductive, but also, and more importantly, because it has negative social and political effects both on global north and south countries.