ABSTRACT

This essay looks at the emergence of human rights archives in the wake of dictatorships in Argentina and Paraguay. It highlights what these archives reveal about the changing role of information on human rights violations within transitional justice programs. Information had played a central role in transitional justice initiatives like truth commissions and trials during the 1980s and early 1990s and as more information surfaced, various state agencies began to think about consolidating the data in human rights archives. These endeavors intersected with new ideas about justice circulating during the mid-1990s that emphasized memory as the key to guaranteeing a stable, human rights-respecting order, rather than relying on law alone. This shift resulted in the creation of archives designed to facilitate the construction of memory from the perspective of the victims. The essay offers insights into the ways that evolving ideas about justice for human rights violations have shaped political change in post-dictatorship polities.