중남미

In the existing literature, there have been few serious discussions about some efforts by new democratic governments to settle human right violations in the previous authoritarian regime, and about their implications for democracy.In new democracy, human rights legacies could be settled by the policy of forgetting, forgiving, prosecuting, or covering, which is respectively based on a consensual, reformist, and conservative, approach.In settling human rights legacies, each approach and its policy may be primarily determined by (1) degrees of human rights violations and policy performance in the authoritarian regime, (2) processes of democratic transition, (3) international human rights regimes, (4) interests and relationships among the government, the military and the civil society in new democracy.Whereas Brazil has been forced to adopt the conservative approach and the policy of covering, Uruguay has settled rights legacies by the policy of forgetting, based on the consensual approach. On the other hand, Argentina and Chile have basically pursued the policy of prosecuting through the reformist approach. Argentina's rights policy has been inconsistent, but Chile's rights policy has been gradual and consistent.Such human rights approaches and policies have caused some political and social tension and conflict, and political instability in new democracy. As a result, they have delayed the processes of democratic regimization and consolidation. That's why new democracy may be still considered “illiberal”, as Peter H. Smith argued in “Democracy in Latin America”(2005)