Luis Moreno Ocampo, the newly awarded Doctor Honoris Causa of the UNR, discussed how the legal system acts as an invisible framework that defines the course of societies, from the dictatorship and democratic transition in Argentina to current global challenges.
Last week, Luis Moreno Ocampo was honored with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. He participated as an assistant prosecutor in one of the most important legal events in our country's history, the Trial of the Military Juntas in 1985. He had the opportunity to give a master class at the University Cultural Center entitled: "Justice and the Protection of Our Rights in 1976, 1985, and 2025."
The historic Trial of the Juntas was notable for being the first trial to bring to justice the top leaders of Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983). Prosecutors Julio César Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo played a central role in an unprecedented event: it was the first trial of military commanders for mass murder since Nuremberg and the only one in the world conducted by civilian courts.
"When he came to pick me up, I told Julio that, while it was an honor for me to participate, I had never done a criminal case in my life, and this would be my first. I don't know if it was madness, desperation, genius, or wisdom on his part, but I remember him saying, 'It's better because if we do it the way we always investigate, this won't happen,'" he recalled.
Moreno Ocampo emphasized that at the time, he specialized in studying cases from the North American system, where prosecutors actively participate in the investigation. “It’s one of the few countries in the world where prosecutors conduct investigations. Julio told me to do something like they do in the United States, and he gave me free rein. The 1985 film depicts that process exactly as it happened, as we conducted an investigation with a group of colleagues who got together to work together. That was a huge legal innovation, because it was the first time in Argentina that prosecutors investigated. We invented it there; in fact, I remember that all the commanders’ defense attorneys were convinced the trial wouldn’t go ahead because there was no precedent for it.”
He recalled that the military's aim was to undermine Alfonsín's position and power, in order to eventually return to power. Thus, he felt it was necessary to reinforce the idea that "the legal architecture is invisible and a matter of life or death." "During the military dictatorship, the military maintained an architecture that was legal for them, where the model was to kidnap people and interrogate them using various methods of torture. Some were then released, others were sent to prison, and still others were killed. You have to understand that it was a completely systematically planned operation."
Since 1983, President Raúl Alfonsín "proposed a different legal framework," which is to investigate the military and not allow himself to be subjected to a pact of silence. "It must be remembered that since 1930, no government democratically elected in free elections has completed its term, except for Perón's first administration, who was also overthrown during his second."
Argentina has experienced multiple coups d'état, with key dates in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976, which overthrew constitutional governments and established military dictatorships of varying lengths. These military coups, which involved economic sectors, the Church, and the Armed Forces, disrupted democratic life and culminated in the final coup of 1976, which initiated the country's bloodiest civil-military dictatorship and a period of state terrorism. "So, when Alfonsín proposed investigating the military, he was truly transforming Argentine history, with a proposal of brutal and revolutionary ambition."
The lawyer explained that at that time, the model promoted by the world's leading academics, including notable figures such as the North American political scientist Philippe Schmitter and the Argentine Guillermo O'Donell (who worked at Stanford), proposed that the path to democracy lay through pact, as had happened in Spain. "There, the Spanish king was the one who managed to use his power to smoothly transform Franco's regime into a democracy. So, that was the model adopted. However, Alfonsín, who was outside the pact because there was a pact he denounced, broke with that. He proposed something very revolutionary, which was basically, for the first time, putting the legal architecture designed by the Constitution into operation. Alfonsín didn't invent a legal system, but he proposed returning to the original legal system and implementing it."
In this way, he emotionally recalled how the then-Argentine president recited the preamble to the national constitution on his first day in office, and that in that act, he laid the foundations for what his government would become. “Precisely what's so good about the legal system is that it makes everyone understand what they have to do. Alfonsín proposes that Congress pass laws, that CONADEP (which consisted of 15 people who had nothing to do with the justice system) work with many other people to put together the report, that the judges (who were very different from each other) carry out the process. A lot of people within the legal system were committed,” he explained, recalling: “Julio Strassera did something very important: he invited people to help him investigate, and they came. So, it was the legal architecture designed by the Constitution implemented in reality.”
A system that seems invisible but is always there
Moreno Ocampo emphasized that the legal architecture is invisible, but it's always there. "It allowed the military to do what they did, and it allowed Alfonsín to do something completely different. For ordinary people, it's invisible."
He explained that when he was the first Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court, he realized that societies think the world is organized, but in reality, "it's governed by certain leaders of countries, which are united nations, although they are also very disunited, depending on the times." Thus, he defined that the leaders of the largest countries believe they can impose their will, and this is not a matter of a disliked president, but rather a design of legal architecture. "In the United States, the predominant activity in international relations is called realism, and they argue that the world is in anarchy; there is no central power to organize the world, so each country must defend itself, and that's why armies are needed to defend themselves. In this way, according to this current, the law is a utopia that can serve to coordinate friends, but that sometimes must be ignored."
During his speech, he argued that what is happening today in places like Gaza and Armenia cannot be reduced to a problem of individual wrongdoing, but rather responds to issues of "legal architecture." In this regard, he recalled the situation in Argentina in 1976, marked by multiple forms of violence: from the Triple A action promoted by the Ministry of Social Welfare to legislators linked to the Montoneros who resorted to arms against a democratic government. This combination of violence, present in unions, guerrilla groups, and paramilitary sectors, found political parties unable to articulate a response. Neither the ruling party, infiltrated by this same logic, nor the opposition were able to develop an alternative plan, which led to the task of imposing order being delegated to the Armed Forces. "A serious shortcoming of the 70s was that the political parties did not have an alternative plan in the face of violence, and from there comes my idea that the legal architecture is invisible."
He also pointed out that one of the main problems in academia is the existence of rigid boundaries between disciplines, which impedes interaction and often creates dissociated worlds. He recalled that in his early days, when facing the trial of the Juntas or when joining the International Criminal Court, he had to learn in practice an unfamiliar terrain, where politicians, lawyers, and diplomats lacked a common language. He even recounted how, in his numerous appearances before the United Nations Security Council, he witnessed the difficulties diplomats had in speaking about justice and the distrust prime ministers felt regarding the real capacity of international courts. In this context, he highlighted Raúl Alfonsín's decision not to intervene directly in the trial of the Juntas, trusting in the work of judges and prosecutors as part of a fundamental policy.
Later, he recounted his time at academic institutions such as Yale and Harvard, where he sought to understand how international relations specialists think. There, he recalled an exchange with Stephen Krasner, dean of Stanford and a specialist in International Relations. “In 2015, during a meeting, he told me that he didn't understand me because I was talking about law, something that wasn't part of his discipline. He emphasized that he studied power, not law. So I responded: 'Look, Stephen, the law creates power. As a prosecutor at the International Court, I was given the authority to request the prosecution of 120 heads of state. Imagine the power they gave me. If you don't understand the law, you don't understand power in today's world.' And he replied: 'Luis, you have the problem, because the law isn't part of my discipline.' Since then, I've been thinking about how to build an academic discipline that can interweave knowledge. We need specialists, but also clinicians capable of understanding the context, of crossing disciplines and nationalities. Because another problem is that the idea of sovereign states leads experts in Law or International Relations to speak only from their countries, and almost no one does it in global terms.”
Finally, Moreno Ocampo called for united wills and for working with various actors to create transdisciplinary perspectives. “The phenomena are complex; they are understood from multiple perspectives. UNR is a wonderful university, with outstanding professionals in all areas. We have spoken with Rector Bartolacci and have considered many projects to launch to analyze different topics from different disciplines, coordinating with other universities on the continent, in order to strengthen this more global perspective.”
Journalist: Gonzalo J. García/ Photographer: Karen Roeschlin