Moral Victories - by Susan D Burgerman (Hardcover)

About the Book

In the 1980s, security forces and paramilitary organizations killed, abducted, or tortured an estimated 80,000 Salvadoran citizens. During this period, the government of Guatemala was responsible for the death or disappearance of more than 100,000...

Book Synopsis

In the 1980s, security forces and paramilitary organizations killed, abducted, or tortured an estimated 80,000 Salvadoran citizens. During this period, the government of Guatemala was responsible for the death or disappearance of more than 100,000 civilians, many of them indigenous peasants. But such abuses were curtailed when peace talks, largely motivated by international human rights activism, led to interventions by United Nations observers who raised the degree of respect for human rights within each nation. These two cases are emblematic of many more in recent world events. Susan Burgerman here explains how international pressure can be effective in changing oppressive state behavior. Moral Victories includes a detailed comparative study of human rights abuses in El Salvador and Guatemala from 1980 to 1996, as well as a brief, focused examination of the situation in Cambodia from 1975 to 1992.Moral Victories lays out the mechanisms by which the United Nations and transnational human rights activists have intervened in civil wars and successfully linked international peace and security with the promotion of human rights. The meaning of state sovereignty, defense of which had previously limited governments to unenforceable statements of opprobrium against violator nations, has changed over the past two decades to allow for more aggressive action in support of international moral standards. As a result, human rights have gained increasing importance in the arena of world politics.While researching this book in Guatemala and El Salvador, Burgerman interviewed government officials, negotiators, analysts, and human rights workers, and accompanied UN observer teams in their travels through rainforests and mountainous terrain.

Review Quotes

Moral Victories is a solid and very readable contribution to the literature on attempts to implement the international human rights regime.

Burgerman shows how human rights activism is increasingly changing state policy, especially in the case of 1980s El Salvador and Guatemala.... While intervention is not always feasible or apropos, Burgerman provides circumstances when the international community has and should enforce human rights.

Burgerman's generic template is a useful first cut of determinants of success, particularly for her specific issue of respect for human rights during civil conflict.

Susan Burgerman considers one of the most important questions facing the post-Cold War world: why do sovereign states cooperate to promote human rights'.... Grounding her claims in face-to-face interviews with government officials, negotiators, UN rapporteurs, and grassroots activists in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Cambodia, Burgerman offers an honest, yet hopeful appraisal of the present status and future prospects of human rights promotion.

The clearly written text of this work is only 146 pages; the remainder of the book consists of excellent notes, lists of the many acronyms, interviews, and documents cited. This attests to a serious and unbiased work by a well-qualified author, an expert on Latin America.... The book is very useful to studies of the UN, human rights, and the changing nature of state sovereignties.

This is an informative and thought-provoking book, and should be read by anyone interested in human rights work or recent Central American politics.

About the Author

Susan Burgerman is Associate Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.