Tortura e autoritarismo: a construção do regime interamericano de proibição à tortura é legado dos regimes autoritários da América Latina no século XX.

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study every torture cases judged by Interamerican Court of Human Rights until the year of 2014, pointing out the reason why the aforementioned tortures were inflicted, if the authoritarian regimes that those countries were inserted in had contributed, somehow, for their occurrence. Having made the analysis, an attempt shall be done to answer the following question: are the international regimes against torture a legacy of latin American authoritarian regimes in the 20th Century? There was need, however, to analyze torture itself ¿ not only on its social meaning, but primarily on its legal meaning ¿ its history on western society, the different uses and aims, as well as different concepts of torture throughout the years and how International Human Rights Conventions deal with torture crime. The Interamerican System of Human Rights Protection was studied as well under two different foci, as well as if the normative construction of Interamerican Court of Human Rights was a factor that has helped to build up the international regime against torture, and if the aforementioned regime is authoritarian legacy. The first focus is on authoritarian torture, on which was discussed cases that have happened in countries under an authoritarian regime. The second focus was torture as remnant of authoritarian ideology, on which cases, the country, even though had been no longer under the authoritarian regime, preserve the ideals that based the torture against some groups, and give place to new torture crimes. In this analysis there is the attempt to answer the question: are international regimes against torture a legacy of 20th century Latin American authoritarian regimes?