| Summary: | Transitional justice has been historically linked to dealing with the legacy of massive and systematic civil and political rights violations. However, some scholars and practitioners have stressed the importance of including an economic, social and cultural rights perspective in transitional justice. This is a relatively new area of research, with limited analysis of the challenges or best ways to address economic, social and cultural rights through the transitional justice framework.
In this context, Latin America plays an important role, with cases of inclusion of an economic, social and cultural rights approach in transitional justice processes. This thesis examines these cases with the aim to analyse the way in which the economic, social and cultural rights dimension of transitional justice is developed. To this end, this thesis conducts a doctrinal analysis of the normative framework of transitional justice and the nature of economic, social and cultural rights State’s obligations in Latin America. Moreover, it conducts a case study of Chile to provide a specific transitional justice context, comparing the inclusion of an economic, social and cultural rights approach in this country with other Latin American experiences.
It is concluded that there is still a marginal inclusion of an economic, social and cultural rights approach in transitional justice processes in Latin America. Moreover, in the cases where this approach is incorporated, it has been mainly secondary to civil and political rights. In addition, there is observable lack of consistency in the language of economic, social and cultural rights. Despite this, transitional countries in Latin America offer interesting examples on how to embrace an economic, social and cultural rights approach, through legal principles of national and international law and the broad interpretation of notions enshrined in transitional justice and the civil and political rights framework.
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