Truth, Justice, and Reparations in Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea: The Clash of Advocacy and Politics

“Ñusta Carranza Ko's exciting new book deftly challenges the conventional wisdom, showing through detailed case studies of Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea that domestic political factors dominate over international advocacy in explaining long term adherence to–or backsliding from–international human rights and transitional justice norms. Carranza Ko should be commended for an important contribution to international relations and political science.”
–Clifford Bob, Professor and Chair of Political Science, Duquesne University
This book presents the first cross-regional analysis of post-transitional justice periods and the conditions that influence states’ behaviors. Specifically, the book examines why states that adopt and ostensibly implement transitional justice norms as policies—criminal prosecutions, reparations policies, and truth commissions—fail to follow through with their recommendations. Applying these perspectives to a comparative study of states from Latin America and East Asia—namely, Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea—which accepted and implemented transitional justice norms but took different trajectories of behavior after the implementation of policies, this book contributes to understanding the relationship of norm influence on states and why states change in compliance after norm adoption. The book explores the conditions that contribute or limit the continued respect for transitional justice norms, emphasizing the political interests and transnational advocacy networks’ roles in affecting states’ policies of addressing past abuses.

Ñusta Carranza Ko is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. She is the co-author of Theories of International Relations and the Game of Thrones (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019). Her research focuses on transitional justice in Latin America and Asia, and indigenous peoples’ rights in Peru.