Before leaving power in 1990, Chilean general and dictator Augusto Pinochet created a legal framework that guaranteed him absolute impunity. It didn’t work. He was arrested on charges of genocide and terrorism in London in 1998 by order of the Spanish justice system and, upon his return to Chile, finally had to face justice.
Years later, I had the opportunity to lead a team of public lawyers trying nearly 900 cases of crimes against humanity during the Chilean dictatorship. Though Pinochet was already dead, his accomplices had to be duly judged. But decades after his rule, human rights continue to be routinely violated in Latin America, often for defending the environment.
Almost 90% of the world's environment-related killings occur in the region, according to Global Witness, an international organisation that tracks human rights and environmental abuses. A fifth of these incidents – which are only those that are reported, the true number is likely much higher – happen in the Amazon, which spans parts of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela.
