What happened to the caped crusader? On the purposes of punishment in relation to obligations to end impunity for crimes against humanity

Abstract

With the intention of paying tribute to professor Miguel Soto Piñeiro, the following article presents an opinion on punishment and its purposes in relation to international law, using analogies with the story narrated in the comic What happened to the Caped Crusader?, in terms of retributionism as an explanation to the idea of punishment or sanction. Next, the author reviews the conception given by international law to the obligation of states to proscribe impunity for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, which includes, in addition to criminal prosecution, proportionality in the sanction imposed and the effective execution and enforcement of the sentence, to prevent new forms of impunity. Finally, the author analyzes the Chilean criminal justice system and its response to the crimes and human rights violations perpetrated during the military dictatorship, explaining how they were addressed and the failures it presented at the time in terms of the duty to proscribe impunity, as the so called half criminal statute of limitations, the lack of application of aggravating circumstances and the granting of unjustified mitigating circumstances by the jurisprudence.