INTRODUCTION

Raúl Alfonsín, Argentina's first democratically elected president after the last dictatorship (1976 – 83), took office on December 10, 1983. His government pursued a human rights agenda focused on the discovery of the truth regarding past State repression and the prosecution of the high command of the armed forces and the upper echelons of political-military organizations. One of the milestones of this agenda was the setup of the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP, National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons), which operated between 1983 and 1984, and the Trial of the Junta, which took place in 1985.

CONADEP was a “Commission of Notables”, dominated by prominent individuals from civil society and the arts with a history of human rights activism. It was created to investigate the fate of disappeared persons, locate children abducted from their parents, to collect testimony, refer cases to the justice system, and draft a report. The Commission drafted the well-known final report “N unca Más” (Never Again), which constitutes a key point of reference in Argentina's engagement with its past. Moreover, it set an important precedent for other truThcommissions throughout the world.

Although it did not originally intend to formulate recommendations, CONADEP included a limited list of substantive recommendations in its report regarding matters of justice, reparation, institutional reform, and guarantees for non-recurrence.

Over the past 37 years, the recommendations set forThin Nunca Más have largely been implemented. While the Argentine human rights movement led the push for action, implementation proceeded in fits and starts according to historical circumstances. The content of these measures related to memory, truth and justice have strongly shaped the country's subsequent political development. In the decades since the report was released, the truth of what happened during the State Terrorism have prompted nearly constant social mobilization and driven public debates about several highly contentious issues. Specifically, the fight against impunity for the crimes committed by State terrorism has leftan indelible mark on the country's recent history. The relatives of victims, as well as the broader human rights movement jointly with other actors, have implemented a variety of strategies to sustain public demand to investigate and punish the perpetrators of these crimes. With regards to justice and memory, some administrations embraced this agenda, while others were more reactive. The matter of reparations has been less controversial. Even during the so-called “years of impunity” during the 1990s, very important results were achieved in terms of truth-seeking, reparation, and memory-building.