Tag: U.S. federal courts

Problems in U.S. Asylum System Help Promote Increases in U.S. Immigration

A lengthy Wall Street Journal article provides details on the well-known promotion of increases in U.S. immigration by the many problems in the U.S. asylum system. Here then is a summary of the basic U.S. law of asylum, the current U.S. system for administering such claims and a summary of the current problems with such administration.

The Basic Law of Asylum

On July 2, 1951, an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland concluded with the signing of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees by the conference attendees and the opening of the treaty for accession or ratification by nation states.[9] By its Article 43(1) it was to enter into force or become a binding treaty 90 days after the sixth state had acceded or ratified the treaty. That happened on April 22, 1954.[1]

This treaty adopted the following definition of “refugee” in Article 1(A)(2) as any person who:

  • “[As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951] and owing to well- founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

The bracketed phrase [“As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951”] was the provision that limited the coverage of the Convention to the problems still being faced by many World War II refugees still scattered across Europe. This limiting phrase was eliminated in the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees discussed below.

Excluded from this definition of “refugee” in Article 1(F) was “any person . . . [who] (a) . . . has committed a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity . . . ; (b) . . . has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee; [or] (c) . . . has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the [U.N.].”

The Convention granted refugees certain rights within a country of refuge as well as imposing on them certain obligations. The Convention further stipulates that, subject to specific exceptions, refugees should not be penalized for their “illegal entry or presence.” This recognizes that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach national immigration rules. Prohibited penalties might include being charged with immigration or criminal offences relating to the seeking of asylum, or being arbitrarily detained purely on the basis of seeking asylum.

By 1966, it had become apparent that new refugee situations had arisen since the Refugee Convention had been adopted and that all refugees should enjoy equal status. As a result, a new treaty was prepared to eliminate the previously mentioned limitation of the Convention to those refugees created by pre-1951 events. This was the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees that went into force on October 4, 1967.

There now are 146 countries that are party to this Convention and 147 nation states (and the Holy See) that are parties to this Protocol and the Convention including the U.S. which ratified same on October 4, 1967 and November 1, 1968.[2]

Twelve years later the U.S. adopted a statute to solidify U.S. obligations under those international treaties. That was the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980.[3]

And in 1996 that statute was amended to define past persecution to include forced abortion or sterilization or punishment for failure or refusal to undergo such procedures and to define fear of being forced to undergo such a procedure or punishment for refusing to undergo same as future persecution.

Another amendment to that statute was enacted in the REAL ID Act of 2005 which required that an asylum applicant must prove that race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership was or will be “at least one central reason” for his or her persecution.

The Current U.S. System for Administrating Asylum Claims[4]

 The U.S. has various means for administering asylum claims.

First is the U.S. State Department’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program that “accepts referrals of individuals determined by international agencies or other governments to be particularly vulnerable to persecution under these treaties.“

The U.S. also has a complex system of evaluating and deciding upon individual applications for asylum by foreigners at the U.S. international borders or other points of entry by U.S. officials at those borders or by asylum officers, immigration judges or the administrative Board of Asylum Appeals and by U.S. federal courts.

The Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, which is led by the Chief Immigration Judge, establishes operating policies and oversees policy implementation for the immigration courts. OCIJ provides overall program direction and establishes priorities for approximately 600 immigration judges located in 68 immigration courts and three adjudications centers throughout the Nation.”

Current Problems in the U.S. Administration of Asylum Claims[5]

During the U.S. 2023 fiscal year (ending September 30, 2023), “the U.S. received more than 920,000 applications for asylum. . . . Since a single application can cover multiple members of a family, these  figures underestimate the actual numbers of people seeking asylum.” Such family groups, “who now almost always ask for asylum, make up about half the roughly two million people encountered by authorities who illegally crossed the U.S. frontier with Mexico last year. Another half million came through legal ports of entry, many using a Border Patrol smartphone app that launched in January 2023 to make an appointment to cross and ask for asylum.”

“The law in the U.S. typically gives migrants who have a reasonable claim of persecution the right to live and work in the country while their cases progress through the courts. So many are now coming that the U.S. lacks the capacity to quickly screen their cases, either at the border or in courts, where a typical asylum case now takes four years. “

“Even if an application is ultimately rejected, migrants by then have put down roots, often had American children and are rarely deported because of the costs and logistical challenges. They are left in limbo—they lose the right to work legally but aren’t kicked out. “ As a result, they “simply melt . . .  into the underground society of undocumented migrants and making a new life.”

“The growing use of asylum claims overwhelmed the system and made it nearly impossible to address cases on the spot—immigration officials at the border can screen entrants and determine whether they have a ‘credible fear”‘ of being returned to their own country, rejecting those outright who don’t meet that requirement. Only a few hundred screenings a day out of several thousands of border encounters now take place.” In fiscal 2019 the number of border encounters resulting in immediate repatriation to the applicants’ home countries fell to about 30%.

Conclusion

Virtually everyone agrees that the asylum system needs overhauling, but the dysfunctional Congress has been unable to pass such a bill. Any such “reform” should also evaluate the U.S. need for immigrant labor in our society with an aging, declining population.[6]

Moreover, every U.S. citizen today (other than Native Americans) should proclaim, as does this blogger, “I am a proud descendant of immigrants!”

==================================

[1] Refugee and Asylum Law: The Modern Era, dwkcommentareis.com (July 9, 2011); Multilateral Human Rights Treaties Ratified by the U.S., dwkcommentaries.com  (Feb. 9, 2012).

[2] The 1951 Refugee Convention;. Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.

[3] Weissbrodt, Ni Aolain, Fitzpatrick & Newman, International Human Rights: Law, Policy, and Process at 1040-42 (4th ed. 2009). Any subsequent statutory amendments?

[4] U.S. State Dep’t, U.S. Refugee Admissions Program; Office of the Chief Immigration Judge,

[5] E.g., Luhnow, Caldwell & Forero, The Explosion of Asylum Claims Driving the Global Migrant Crisis, W.S. J. (April 8, 2024); Need to Improve U.S. Asylum System, dwkcommentaries.com Feb. 1, 2023).

[6] E.g., Here is a sampling list of relevant dwkcommentaries.com posts: Iowa State Government Encouraging Refugees and Migrant Resettlement (Feb., 3, 2023); Comment: National Worker Shortages in U.S.(Feb. 3, 2023); More Details on U.S. and Other Countries’ Worker Shortages (Feb. 9, 2023);Other States Join Iowa in Encouraging Immigration to Combat Aging, Declining Population (Feb. 22, 2023); Biden Administration Announces Proposed Restrictions on Asylum Applications  (Feb. 27, 2023); Wall Street Journal Editorial: U.S. Needs More Immigrants (July 25, 2023); Increasing Migrant Crossings at U.S. Border Call for Legal Changes (Aug. 16, 2023); Overwhelmed U.S. Immigration Court System (Sept.1, 2023); U.S. Has Long-Term Labor Crisis (Sept. 26, 2023); Presidential Determination of Refugee Admissions for Fiscal 2024 (Oct. 4, 2023); Congressional Dysfunction Hampers U.S. Immigration Policies and Actions (Oct. 7, 2023); Migrants from All Over Flocking to U.S. (Nov 4, 2023); Washington Post Editorial: Improving U.S. Asylum Law and Procedures (Nov. 28. 2023); U.S. Border Crisis Blocks U.S. Immigration Reform (Dec. 7, 2023); U.S. States That Could Have Greatest Benefit from Immigrant Labor (Feb. 28, 2024).

International Criminal Justice: El Salvador’s General Amnesty Law and Its Impact on the Jesuits Case

We already have looked at a Spanish court’s recent issuance of 20 criminal arrest warrants regarding the November 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador[1] and the provisional facts of the murders themselves[2]  and the Salvadoran military’s attempts to cover up its being the one responsible for the killings.[3]  We also have summarized the Salvadoran criminal case regarding this crime[4] and the work of the Truth Commission for El Salvador as it pertains to this crime.[5] Now we look at El Salvador’s General Amnesty Law and its impact on the Jesuits’ case.[6]

Adoption of the General Amnesty Law

Five days after the delivery of the Truth Commission Report in March 1993, El Salvador’s National Assembly adopted the General Amnesty Law for the Consolidation of the Peace (Decree 486). It granted in Article 1: “a full, absolute and unconditional amnesty to all those who participated in any     way in the commission, prior to January 1, 1992 [the end of the civil war], of political crimes or common crimes linked to political crimes or common crimes in which the number of persons involved is no less than twenty.”

This law’s Article 6 stipulated that the amnesty shall apply “to the persons referred to in article 6 of the National Reconciliation Law . . . of January 23, 1992 [i.e., to those who would be named or implicated in the anticipated Truth Commission Report].” In addition, Article 2 of the Law broadened the definition of “political crime” to include “crimes against the public peace,” “crimes against the activities of the courts,” and crimes “committed on the occasion of or as a consequence of the armed conflict, without regard to political condition, militancy, affiliation or ideology.” Article 4 stated that all pending cases should be dismissed and all individuals being held should be released while anyone charged in the future could obtain dismissal of the charges. In addition, Article 4 provided that the amnesty extinguished all civil liability.[7]

This legislation had been recommended by then President Cristiani and passed by the ARENA- party-controlled Assembly over objections by the U.N. Secretary General and the new Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman. It should also be noted that the Truth Commission had not recommended any amnesty as the Commissioners thought that was a decision for the people to make after an appropriate dialogue on the subject. But the manner in which the General Amnesty Law was rushed through the legislature was later seen by at least one of the Truth Commissioners as “unseemly at the very least, indicative of a lack of respect for the democratic processes, and thus incompatible with the spirit of the Peace Accords.” [8]

In passing the General Amnesty Law, the Government overruled the agreed-on terms of the National Reconciliation Law of January 23, 1992, that provided amnesty for combatants in the civil war, but not for (1) persons convicted by juries and (2) those named by the Truth Commission as responsible for serious human rights violations, but that allowed the latter exception to amnesty to be overruled by the National Assembly six months after the issuance of the Truth Commission Report and presumably after public debate about any such overruling. Significantly the National Reconciliation Law of 1992 was a political compromise. The right-wing ARENA party that controlled the government wanted a blanket amnesty that would have immunized all persons committing any war crimes while opposition parties wanted a more limited amnesty, and the two sides instead agreed to the compromise provision just noted.[9]

Impact of the General Amnesty Law on the Jesuits Case in El Salvado

In 1993, pursuant to the General Amnesty Law, Colonel Benavides and the others who had been convicted in the Jesuits case were released from prison.[10]

 Salvadoran Litigation over the General Amnesty Law

 Immediately after the adoption of this law, Salvadoran human rights organizations brought a lawsuit to challenge its constitutionality, but the Salvadoran Supreme Court in 1993 rejected that claim. The court, in part, justified its conclusion by relying upon the following provision of Article 6(5) of the Protocol II to the Geneva Convention relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts: “At the end of hostilities, the authorities in power shall endeavour to grant the broadest possible amnesty to persons who have participated in the armed conflict, or those   deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict, whether they are  interned or detained.” [11]

This broad reading of the above provision of Protocol II of this Geneva Convention, however, is not sustained by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has primary responsibility for monitoring world-wide compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the ICRC says it is inappropriate to grant amnesty to persons who have violated international humanitarian law, i.e., the law of war; Article 6(5) instead was intended to encourage amnesty or immunity for combatants so long as they act in accordance with that humanitarian law.[12]

Moreover, notwithstanding this provision of Protocol II, El Salvador’s General Amnesty Law and similar laws in other countries have been criticized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as violating the American Convention on Human Rights. Similar criticisms have been leveled against this and similar laws in other countries under the American Convention on Human Rights and other multilateral human rights treaties by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the U.N. Secretary-General, several U.N. human rights bodies, the European Court of Human Rights and international criminal tribunals.[13] These arguments also have been advanced by human rights NGOs.[14]

Again in 2000 the Salvadoran Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the General Amnesty Law, but this time it also held that each investigative judge could determine whether application of the law in a particular case would interfere with the country’s treaty obligations or with reparation of a fundamental right, and if it would so interfere, the judge would not have to apply the law.[15]

The importance of the General Amnesty Law and whether it is constitutional under Salvadoran law has not gone away. Indeed, right now these are hot topics in El Salvador, as we will see in the next post.

In any event, as a result of the General Amnesty Law, the author is not aware of any new Salvadoran criminal prosecutions of those named in the Truth Commission Report, and the Commission’s recommendation of eventual punishment of the guilty by the Salvadoran government has been rejected. Moreover, in the years since the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision announcing the ability of a judge in an individual case to not apply the amnesty law, the author is not aware of any instance in which that has been done.

[1] See Post: International Criminal Justice: Spanish Court Issues Criminal Arrest Warrants for Salvadoran Murders of Jesuit Priests (May31, 2011).

[2]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: The Salvadoran Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 2, 2011).

[3]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: El Salvador’s Military’s Attempt To Cover-Up Its Committing the Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 7, 2011).

[4]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: The Salvadoran Criminal Prosecution of the Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 8, 2011).

[5] See Post: International Criminal Justice: The Jesuits Case in the Truth Commission for El Salvador (June 9, 2011) .

[6]  In subsequent posts, we will examine the Jesuits case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Spanish court.

[7]  I-A Comm’n Human Rights, Report on the Situation in El Salvador § II (4) (Feb. 11, 1994); Doe v. Saravia, 348 F. Supp. 2d at 1133;  U.S.State Dep’t, El Salvador Human Rights Practices, 1993, at 1 (Jan. 31, 1994); Hemisphere Initiatives,  Justice Impugned: The Salvadoran Peace Accords and the Problem of Impunity at 6-7 (June 1993); Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, El Salvador’s Negotiated Revolution: Prospects for Legal Reform at 62-79; Popkin at 135, 150-52; Brief Amici Curiae [26 international human rights law professors] in Support of Appellees and Affirmance at 4, Chavez v. Carranza (6th Cir. May 14, 2008) [“Law Professors Amici Brief”].

[8]  Miller, Compromise Amnesty Law OK’d in Salvador–Central America, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 24, 1992; Popkin at 150-52; Buergenthal at 536-38.There, however, was no significant political support for repeal of the General Amnesty Law, and in 1994 the FMLN said that if the Law were held unconstitutional, it would support a new, narrower amnesty law. Popkin at 157.

[9]   Id.

[10]  IACHR, Ellacuria v. El Salvador, Rep. No. 136/99 ¶ 36 (Case No. 10.488 Dec. 22, 1999); New Charges Barred in Salvador Killings, N. Y. Times, Oct. 24, 2000.

[11]  Popkin at 152-53; International Comm. of Red Cross, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebList?ReadForm&id=475&t=art. Subsequently courts in South Africa and Chile apparently followed this ruling of the El Salvador Supreme Court. (Popkin at 153.)

[12]  Roht-Arriaza, Combating Impunity: Some Thoughts on the Way Forward, 59 Law & Contemp. Problems 93, 97 (Fall 1996); Roht-Arriaza, The Developing Jurisprudence on Amnesty, 20 Hum. Rts. Q. 843, 865-66 (1998); IACHR, Cea, et al, v, El Salvador . Rep. No. 1/99, ¶ 116 (Case No. 10.480 Jan. 27, 1999); Popkin at 154.

[13]  U.N. Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances–Mission to El Salvador ,  ¶¶  62-75, 83 (Oct. 26, 2007); U.N. Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances  ¶  426 (Jan. 10, 2008); U.N. Human Rights Comm., Concluding Observations of the Committee: El Salvador   ¶ 6 (July 22, 2003);  U.N. Human Rights Comm., Concluding Observations of the Committee: Republic of Congo  ¶ 12 (2000); U.N. Human Rights Comm., General Comment 20, ¶ 15 (Mar. 10, 1992); U.N. Comm. on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Concluding Observations of the Committee: El Salvador   ¶ ¶ 15, 22 (April 4, 2006); U.N. Hum. Rts. Comm’n, General Recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on Torture ¶ (k) (2003); U.N. Gen. Ass’bly Res. 47/133, Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances , Art. 18 (1) (Feb. 12, 1993); IACHR, 1985-1986 Annual Report of IACHR, ch. V (“only the appropriate democratic institutions—usually the legislature—with the participation of all the representative sectors, are the only ones called upon to determine whether or not to decree an amnesty of [sic] the scope thereof, while amnesties decreed previously by those responsible for the violations has [sic] no juridical validity”);  Law Professors Amici Brief at 8-29; Weissbrodt at 500-01.

[14]  E.g., Equipo de Concertacion por la paz, la dignidada y la justicia social, Evaluacion de 15 anos despues de la firma de los Acuerdos de Paz en El Salvador  (Jan. 16, 2007);  Equipo Regional de Monitoreo y Analisis de Derechos Humanos en Centroamerica, Derechos Humans y Conflictividad en C.A.: Violencia, impunidad y megaproyectos contra la vida y la dignidad  (June 2008); Equipo Regional de Monitoreo y Analisis de Derechos Humanos en Centroamerica, 2008-2009 Informe Sobre Derechos Humanos y Conflictividad en Centroamerica at 30, 67-68 (2009).

[15]  Brief of Amicus Curiae Republic of El Salvador, Carranza v. Chavez, 2009 WL 1511733 (U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-1497 May 28, 2009); Brief Amici Curiae [26 international human rights law professors] in Support of Appellees and Affirmance at 14-15, Chavez v. Carranza (6th Cir. May 14, 2008) [“Law Professors Amici Brief”].

International Criminal Justice: The Jesuits Case in The Truth Commission for El Salvador

We already have looked at a Spanish court’s recent issuance of 20 criminal arrest warrants regarding the November 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador[1] and the provisional facts of the murders themselves[2]  and the Salvadoran military’s attempts to cover up its being the one responsible for the killings.[3]  We also have summarized the Salvadoran criminal case regarding this crime.[4] Along the way we have encountered the findings regarding this crime by the Truth Commission for El Salvador. Now we see what that Commission was and how it did its work.[5]

In January 1992, under United Nations’ auspices, the Government of El Salvador and the FMLN, a Salvadoran guerrilla group, successfully concluded their long negotiations to end the 12 years of civil war. The Peace Accords represent a genuine compromise: the FMLN renounced its aspiration to seize the state by military force and impose radical economic changes while the government and its political supporters relinquished their historical control and violent opposition to change.[6] The Accords laid out sweeping reforms to permit the FMLN to participate in political life, to transform the institutions that had accounted for the major human rights violations and to achieve greater equity in the economic and social life of the country.[7]

The Peace Accords also created the Commission for the Truth for El Salvador.[8] Its inclusion developed out of the desire of both sides for at least symbolic justice focused on the most notorious cases with the U.N. providing the compromise formula for such a commission.[9] The U.N. Secretary-General appointed the three members of the Commission. Notably none of its members was Salvadoran because its work was perceived to be too dangerous for anyone who lived in the country.[10]

The Commission was charged to consider and resolve “the need to clarify and put an end to any indication of impunity on the part of officers of the armed forces, particularly in cases where respect for human rights is jeopardized.”[11]

More specifically, the Commission was to investigate “serious acts of violence that have occurred since 1980 and whose impact on society urgently demands that the public should know the truth.”[12] In conducting these investigations, the Commission was to take into account “the exceptional importance that may be attached to the acts to be investigated, their characteristics and impact, and the social unrest to which they gave rise” and the “need to create confidence in the positive changes which the peace process is promoting and to assist the transition to national reconciliation.”[13]

In addition, the Commission was to make “legal, political or administrative” recommendations for specific cases as both sides had agreed that the Commission could recommend criminal prosecutions.[14] More generally, the Commission recommendations “may include measures to prevent the repetition of such acts, and initiatives to promote national reconciliation.”[15] Under the Peace Accords, the parties “undertake to carry out the Commission’s recommendations.”[16]

The Commission was to conduct its activities “on a confidential basis.” It was not to “function in the manner of a judicial body.” It could use “whatever sources of information it deems useful and reliable.” It could “interview, freely and in private,” anyone. Its procedures should “yield results in the short term, without prejudice to the obligations incumbent on the Salvadoran courts to solve such cases and impose the appropriate penalties on the culprits.”[17]

In evaluating and implementing this Mandate regarding its procedures and methodology, the Commission made the following decisions:

  • It would investigate individual cases or acts that outraged Salvadoran society and/or international opinion as well as a series of individual cases with similar characteristics revealing a pattern of violence or ill treatment that also outraged Salvadoran society.
  • Its sources would be confidential.
  • It would interview people and receive reports from governments and international bodies.
  • It would take all possible steps to ensure the reliability of the evidence used to arrive at a finding; to verify, substantiate and review all statements of facts by checking them against a large number of sources whose veracity had been established and by not basing any finding on a single source or witness or only on a secondary source.
  • It would name perpetrators of human rights violations.
  • Its report would specify the degree of certainty for each finding.  “Overwhelming evidence” would indicate “conclusive or highly convincing evidence.”  “Substantial evidence” would indicate “very solid evidence.”  “Sufficient evidence” would indicate “more evidence to support the . . . finding than to contradict it.”[18]

On March 15, 1993, the Commission delivered its report to the U.N. Security Council, the Government of El Salvador, the FMLN and the National Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (COPAZ). The Report made findings on 32 cases of serious acts of violence, one of which was the murders of the Jesuit priests.[19]

The Commission had no power to prosecute anyone, and it recommended against immediate prosecutions by the Salvadoran government because the Commission believed the Salvadoran judicial system was not capable of handling such cases.[20] Instead, the Commission’s findings on specific cases were intended to be used by the Salvadoran judicial system after it had been reformed to make “whatever final decisions they consider appropriate at this moment in history.”[21]

Finally  the Truth Commission Report has been held by U.S. federal courts to meet standards of trustworthiness and thus was admissible into evidence in cases involving El Salvador.[22]  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has reached the same conclusion for cases from the country.[23]

[1] See Post: International Criminal Justice: Spanish Court Issues Criminal Arrest Warrants for Salvadoran Murders of Jesuit Priests (May31, 2011).

[2]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: The Salvadoran Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 2, 2011).

[3]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: El Salvador’s Military’s Attempt To Cover-Up Its Committing the Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 7, 2011).

[4]  See Post: International Criminal Justice: The Salvadoran Criminal Prosecution of the Murders of the Jesuit Priests (June 8, 2011).

[5]  Commission for the Truth for El Salvador, Report: From Madness to Hope: The 12-year war in El Salvador  at 13-14, 26-171 (March 15, 1993), http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html  [“Commission Report”]; Margaret Popkin, Peace without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El Salvador at 3, 6-7, 41, 46-48, 50-57 (University Park, PA: Penn. State Univ. Press 2000) [“Popkin”]; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Annual Report 1991, ch. IV (Feb. 14, 1992); Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador § I (1) (Feb. 11, 1994).

[6]  Terry Karl, El Salvador’s Negotiated Revolution, 71 Foreign Affairs 147, 148 (1992).

[7]  United Nations, El Salvador Agreements: The Path to Peace (1992) [“Peace Accords”]; Unitarian Universalist Service Comm.,  Provisional Summary of Key Accords by Salvadoran Negotiators (Jan. 15, 1992); Search for Justice, The Salvadoran Peace Accords: A Synopsis (circa Jan. 15, 1992) [“Accord Synopsis“]; El Rescate Human Rights Dep’t, The Salvadoran Peace Accords: An Outline (1992); Popkin at 3-4, 83-95; Human Rights Watch, World Reports: El Salvador (2001); Human Rights Watch, World Reports: El Salvador (2002).

[8]  Id.

[9]  Popkin at 87-94.

[10]  Accord Synopsis; Commission Report; Popkin at 87-88, 94-95, 121-24; Buergenthal, The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, 27 Vanderbilt J. Transnat’l L. 497, 499-500, 503-04 (1994) [“Buergenthal”]. Thomas Buergenthal was one of the members of the Truth Commission, and from 2000 to 2010 he was a judge on the International Court of Justice. (Int’l Court of Justice, Judge Thomas Buergenthal, http://www.icj-cij.org/court/index.php?p1=1&p2=2&p3=1&judge=11.)

[11]  Peace Accords at 53; Commission Report at 18; Popkin at 109-11.

[12]  Peace Accords at 17, 29; Commission Report at 18.

[13]  Peace Accords at 17, 30; Commission Report at 18; Popkin at 109-11.

[14]  Peace Accords at 30; Commission Report at 18; Popkin at 94.

[15]  Peace Accords at 30; Commission Report at 18; Popkin at 109-11.

[16]  Peace Accords at 31; Commission Report at 19.

[17]  Peace Accords at 30, 53; Commission Report at 22.

[18]  Commission Report at 22-25; Popkin at 112-20. The El Salvador Government tried to persuade the Commission not to name individuals. Buergenthal at 519-22 (Commissioners assumed from the start that alleged perpetrators would have to be named and not to do so would reinforce the impunity that was supposed to end); Popkin at 113-14; David Weissbrodt, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Joan Fitzpatrick, and Frank Newman, International Human Rights: Law, Policy and Process  at 499-500 (4th ed. 2009) [“Weissbrodt”].

[19]  Commission Report at 43-171.

[20]   Commission Report at 177-79; Popkin at 131-39, 140-43.

[21]  Commission Report at 13.

[22]  Doe v. Saravia, 348 F. Supp. 2d 1112, 1131-32, 1255 (E.D. Cal. 2005); Chavez v. Carranza, 413 F. Supp. 2d 891, 903-04 (W.D. Tenn. 2005), aff’d, 559 F.3d 486, 496 (6th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 110 (2009); Fed. R. Evid. 801 (c), 803 (8).

[23]  Monsignor Romero v. El Salvador, Rep. No. 37/00, ¶¶ 30-54, 88, 120 (IACHR April 13, 2000); Ignacio Ellacuria, et al. v. El Salvador, Rep. No. 136/99, ¶¶ 79-86 (IACHR Dec. 22, 1999); Admissibility of El Mazote Massacre, Rep. No. 24/06, ¶¶ 30-42 (IACHR Mar. 2, 2006).