{"id":6881,"date":"2025-06-11T08:44:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T12:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/?page_id=6881"},"modified":"2025-06-11T08:44:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T12:44:41","slug":"death-squads-deportations-and-the-rule-of-law-tracing-the-roots-of-todays-crisis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/events\/talks-symposia-and-other-events\/death-squads-deportations-and-the-rule-of-law-tracing-the-roots-of-todays-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Squads, Deportations, and the Rule of Law: Tracing the Roots of Today\u2019s Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">This conflict between respect for the rule of law\u00a0and supposed interests of national security in the U.S. relationship with El Salvador goes back many decades. The 1980 murder of four American churchwomen in El Salvador was a defining event in that bilateral relationship, and the search for justice and accountability is a case study\u2014and a cautionary tale\u2014about the long-term consequences of extreme violence, a dysfunctional legal system, and impunity of those responsible for the worst war crimes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">The discussion about the roots of today\u2019s crisis included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>George Black<\/strong>, author of\u00a0<em>Heart of Darkness in El Salvador: Reopening a Cold War Case\u2014and Why it Still Matters<\/em>, (in the May issue of The New Republic)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jeffrey Smith<\/strong>, Senior Counsel at Arnold &amp; Porter, former General Counsel of the CIA, and\u00a0former Assistant Legal Adviser, Department of State<\/li>\n<li><strong>Isabel Carlota Roby<\/strong>, Senior Staff Attorney, Latin America, RFK Human Rights, lead attorney for 10 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador<\/li>\n<li><strong>Elisa Massimino<\/strong>, Visiting Professor and Executive Director, Human Rights Institute, Georgetown Law<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Heart of Darkness in El Salvador\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1090904493?h=3d37cca581&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This conflict between respect for the rule of law\u00a0and supposed interests of national security in the U.S. relationship with El Salvador goes back many decades. The 1980 murder of four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14986,"featured_media":0,"parent":5380,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-6881","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14986"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6883,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6881\/revisions\/6883"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}