Implementation in Peru

Peru ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 11, 2001. With this ratification Peru took an important step in the fight against impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes.

Peru is currently implementing the Rome Stature in its domestic legislation at two levels: 1) reviewing the constitution and 2) adapting the Criminal Code to the Rome Statute’s provisions.

In 2002, the Peruvian Congressional Constitutional Commission began reviewing the 1993 constitution – the constitution adopted under President Fujimori – which is now criticized for having allowed authoritarian government. In relation to the Rome Statute, the Constitutional Commission is reviewing provisions relating to amnesties, non applicability of statutes of limitation and immunities, among others. Other aspects of the Constitution not relating to the Rome Statute are also being reviewed. Although the Commission remains committed to implementation, the Congress decided to temporarily postpone the approval of the constitutional amendments as a whole, due to political factors.

Human Rights First submitted a legal analysis with recommendations to the Commission regarding immunities, amnesties and statutes of limitation in the Peruvian legal system, proposing that they no longer apply to perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This legal analysis was welcomed among academic institutions and government offices such as the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Mission of Peru to the United Nations in New York. In addition, the document was distributed among Peruvian NGOs at a conference on the Rome Statute in November 2003.

The task of adapting provisions of the Peruvian Criminal Code to the Rome Statute was assigned to a governmental Committee charged with drafting a new chapter on international crimes within the Code. Human Rights First provided legal analysis and advice to the Peruvian Criminal Code Committee regarding the adoption of the general principles of criminal law and the definitions of crimes contained in the Rome Statute.

In a recent visit to Lima to monitor the implementation process on the Criminal Code, Human Rights First learned of a new problem related to the following up on the recommendations of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The issue of statutes of limitation has emerged as a major obstacle to accountability for serious human rights violations committed since the 1980s. There is a real danger that dozens of violations unearthed by Peru’s TRC in its recent report, and which the Commission recommended should be referred for criminal prosecution, will be rejected by the courts because of this legal obstacle.

Human Rights First is preparing a document that analyzes the applicability of statutes of limitations to human rights violations committed in Peru during 1980 -2000 and makes the argument that they should not be applied in the cases reported by the TRC. With the assistance of the Civil and Human Rights Center at Notre Dame University, Indiana, USA, the document will be ready in April 2004.