The Inextricable Path from a Deathbed to the Fight Against Impunity: The Cases of Franco and Pinochet

Abstract

Although Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet both died of natural causes, and neither of them were put on trial for the crimes committed under their regimes, their bodies did not share the same fate. A comparison of these two cases reveals how the treatment of a perpetrator's corpse can, from the point of view of the international protection of human rights, constitute an obstacle to ending the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for the abuses. Conversely, the fight against that impunity can have a decisive bearing on the treatment applied to the remains of the deceased perpetrator. A close link may in fact be discerned between the fate of the corpses of mass criminals and the fight against impunity, along with the policy of commemoration, which is pursued - or not - by the state.