Peace Without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El Salvador (review)

Peace without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El Salvador. By MARGARET POPKIN. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000 . Bibliography. Index. xvi, 287 pp. Cloth, $45.00. Paper, $18.95.

In her definitive work, Margaret Popkin probes the limits of international efforts to reform the criminal justice system in El Salvador in the aftermath of civil war and the transition to democracy. Despite significant international resources, criminal justice institutions and practices proved more resistant to reform than did military prerogatives. Why did building the rule of law in El Salvador prove so difficult in a country where its advantages would seem so clear to all?

Popkin first analyzes in detail the origins of the long-standing impunity of military and police authorities for human rights violations. She then documents the efforts by the U.S. to reform the criminal justice system in the 1980 s and early 1990 s, efforts that accomplished little in terms of changed practices, but which built up a reservoir of recommendations that would prove useful later. She suggests that the project's effectiveness was limited by its association with U.S. counterinsurgency efforts, in contrast to U.S. projects elsewhere in Latin America where significant reforms were realized.

The most compelling section is Popkin's analysis of postwar efforts by the United Nations Mission to El Salvador (ONUSAL) to press for the implementation of reforms mandated by the peace agreement and the U.N.-sponsored Truth Commission. Focusing on aspects of the proposed reforms that would strengthen accountability for human rights violations, namely, reforms to the judiciary, the founding of a human rights ombudsman's office, and the strengthening of prosecutorial and criminal defense capabilities, she weighs both the opportunities for change as well as the constraints, the mission's achievements as well as its failures.

Popkin argues that while international actors and resources contributed significantly to the establishment of the truth concerning human rights violations, the founding of new institutions, and the writing of new laws and procedures, international efforts to realize other objectives were less successful. In particular, national reconciliation that implies at a minimum the acknowledgment of responsibility for human rights violations by military officers, civilian leaders, and insurgent leaders cannot be imposed by international actors. Indeed, she suggests that international efforts to do so may prove counterproductive, provoking a nationalist backlash and complicating domestic efforts, however limited, toward related goals.

Her argument is especially compelling because she is careful to specify the particular circumstances of the Salvadoran case, where an end to war and a transition to democracy occurred through a pacted transition with no change in the governing party. While modernizing factions of the governing party were open to a degree of judicial modernization, they opposed more fundamental reforms, particularly as the postwar crime wave deepened. Popkin argues that while the insurgent organization (the FMLN) was generally more favorable to reform, it emphasized other kinds of reforms in negotiations and eventually accepted the terms of a broad general amnesty that violated international law--in part because several FMLN leaders were eager to take up elected office. Human rights organizations, some dependent on FMLN leadership, lacked the autonomy and resources to oppose the amnesty on their own. Given her emphasis on the lack of domestic "ownership" of reform efforts, the argument would have been somewhat stronger had Popkin developed this suggestion in more detail.

Popkin frequently compares the Salvadoran case with other cases where efforts were made to hold governments accountable for human rights violations through truth commissions or similar processes, including Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, and South Africa. This comparative dimension renders the book invaluable both for those readers who know the Salvadoran case well and for those who know the general literature but want to understand the difficult course of judicial reform in a flagship case of international involvement in postconflict...