O “Caso Araguaia” e o Conflito entre a Justiça de Transição Brasileira E o Sistema Interamericano de Proteção dos Direitos Humanos

Abstract

This essay intends to contribute to the study of the historical, political and legal factors for which Brazil is the only country, among those of South America that lived under military dictatorships, in which state agents who commit serious violations of human rights during the authoritarian regime (including crimes against humanity) are not criminally punished. In order to achieve its objective this work takes the "Araguaia Guerrilla Case" as a basis for analyzing the conflicting ways in which four institutions – the highest Brazilian Justice court, i.e. the Supreme Court, and the Brazilian State, on one side, and the Brazilian Advocates Order and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, on the other side – comprehend the Brazilian Amnesty Law (Law n° 6.683/1979). Conflicting interpretations of the mentioned law put Brazilian Transitional Justice and Inter-American System of Human Rights Protection on opposite sides, specifically with regard to the issue of revision of the Amnesty Law for the purpose of criminal punishment. After examining in detail the postures assumed by the actors involved in the case and the principal legal aspects of the matter, one comes to the conclusion that Brazilian Government, by keeping its posture and not prosecuting and punishing those criminal State agents – obligation for which Brazil was convicted in the sentence issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – became guilty by an international illicit, fact that puts in doubt one of the fundamental aspects of Brazilian Transitional Justice.