This article identifies the characteristics of transitional justice (TJ) in Latin America compared to other world regions and explores the causes of such characteristics. The author highlights seven discernible aspects in TJ as practiced in Latin America. First, Latin America pioneered the current wave of TJ in the mid-1980s. Consequently, the Latin American experience inspired and contributed to the development of the TJ “field” at the global level. Truth commissions and “the right to the truth” may be counted among such contributions. Further, numerous perpetrators were successfully prosecuted in Latin America, perhaps on par with the Western Balkans. Second, the “post-authoritarian type” predominates in Latin America’s TJ, as opposed to the “post-conflict type.” Only four countries, i.e., El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Colombia, had “post-conflict TJ.” Third, the punishments of the perpetrators were almost exclusively assumed by the national courts rather than international or hybrid courts. Nevertheless, prosecutions in the national courts of foreign countries had some significance. Fourth, regional human rights institutions, i.e., the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, were instrumental in advancing victims’ rights. Fifth, domestic factors were far more important than international factors in Latin America’s TJ. The limited international involvement may be explained by the pioneering character of Latin America’s TJ (as the international community only began to involve itself in TJ in the 1990s). More importantly, it may be attributable to the predominance of the “post-authoritarian type” (because the international community often serves as a mediator in internal armed conflict, but not in democratization settings). Sixth, the driving force of TJ in Latin America has been victims and their supporters, especially domestic human rights NGOs, which were far more instrumental than international and foreign NGOs in advancing TJ in their countries. Seventh, in Latin America, the principal demands of victims were the punishment of the perpetrators and the truth, although this conclusion should be qualified by several important caveats provided in the article. The truth can be divided between the “micro truth” (what happened to the particular victims) and the “macro truth” (the overall pattern of human rights violations and war crimes in the country). The victims were eager to discover the micro truth and, although most knew the macro truth, they demanded that it be recognized by the state and society. The article advocates for considering the Latin American experience to obtain a less skewed and more diversified representation of TJ around the world.

This article aims to review whether schemes incorporating human resources, funding, institution, and ideas from an aid recipient country had any effect on the policy-making process of International Development Agency. The diversification of new aid or fund providers, including emerging countries such as China and private corporations, has attracted much attention in recent research and implementations of international development projects. Critics maintain that this has led to an unbalanced power relation between aid provider and recipient. One of the most significant examples would be the shift toward Localization in development plans devised by International Development Agency, including organizations within the United Nations. Such development has been said to enable aid provider to broaden interactions with the recipient for its own agenda. Hence, by examining the conventional argument that local assets must be utilized to compensate for the lack of funds and resources of International Development Agency, this paper has revealed the ways in which International Development Agency policies can become dictated by conditions at aid recipient country, whereby indicating the possibility of finding a solution to the restoration of power balance.

In particular, this paper has followed Argentina’s transition from military rule to a democratically elected government, a period which had been marked by very specific reference to democratic values in policy documents of International Development Agency, especially that of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). First, an overview of the Localization policy is given to trace its historic characteristics as it infiltrated the Latin American region in the second half of the 1970s. Second, democratization and economic development issues faced by Argentina are identified to provide a backdrop for the introduction of Localization policy. Third, an analysis of measures taken by UNDP onsite is presented through evidence found in the Country Programme documents. Finally, it discusses about how Localization of development project had swayed UNDP policies and analyses the main factors for these changes. As a conclusion, the paper has demonstrated that a growing tendency in incorporating resources from aid recipient country will inevitably embroil International Development Agency in local issues to such an extent, it does not only lead to alteration of policies but also heavy reliance on Country Office for responsive actions.