This episode examines Argentina, 1985 (2022) (directed by Santiago Mitre) and the documentary, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011) (directed by Pamela Yates). Both works engage with questions of transitional justice, or how societies confront mass atrocities committed by a prior repressive regime. Argentina, 1985 depicts the Trial of the Juntas in Argentina, where a prosecution team led by Julio César Strassera (Ricardo Darín) and future-ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo (Peter Lanzani), sought to bring leaders of Argentina’s former military dictatorship to justice for human rights abuses committed during the so-called Dirty War. Granito: How to Nail a Dictator depicts long-running efforts to hold accountable Guatemalan General Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide and other atrocities committed during Guatemala’s brutal civil war.  Our guest is Rachel López, Associate Professor of Law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University. Professor López is a widely recognized expert on transitional justice and has studied efforts to hold former leaders responsible for mass abuses in Guatemala and elsewhere.Timestamps:0:00  Introduction4:15  Defining transitional justice6:47  The “Dirty War” in Argentina10:04  Overcoming the public’s blind faith in the military12:42  Appealing to multiple audiences in accountability trials16:18 The Prosecutors in Argentina: Julio César Strassera & Luis Moreno Ocampo 21:38  Argentina’s trial of military leaders in historical context25:46  Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo and the role of civil society31:02  The parallels between the atrocities in Argentina and Guatemala33:38  The challenges of holding leaders responsible (i.e., nailing a dictator)37:56  The “boomerang effect”: universal jurisdiction and the litigation in Spain 42:01  The significance of the genocide prosecution in Guatemala 44:54  The risks of relying too much on trials in transitional justice50:10  The discovery of the records of Guatemalan National Police51:54  Investigating atrocities53:28  The implications of failing to reckon with the past56:06  America's role in the atrocities in Argentina and Guatemala58:08  The trials' legacy and lessons for the U.S. Further reading:Engle, Karen,  Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016) López, Rachel E., "The (Re)Collection of Memory after Mass Atrocity and the Dilemma for Transitional Justice," 48 N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 799 (2015)Guatemala: Never Again, The Official Report of the Human Rights Office, Archbishop of Guatemala (1999)Nunca Más, The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared (1986)Roht-Arriaza, Naomi, The Pinochet Effect: Transitional Justice in the Age of Human Rights (Univ. of Penn. Press, 2005)Sikkink, Kathryn, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics (W.W. Norton and Company, 2011) Teitel, Ruti G., Transitional Justice (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a law professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated many important cases to protect civil liberties and defend human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is also a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/faculty/full-time/jonathan-hafetz.cfmYou can follow him on Twitter @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on Twitter @LawOnFilm