For over a decade, PJI lawyers Max Marcus and Kathy Roberts have accompanied Guatemalan prosecutors and analysts in the Internal Armed Conflict unit (CAI; for its initials in Spanish), and lawyers representing the victims in relation to specific cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, including sexual violence crimes.
PJI’s legal team worked intensively with the CAI and victim lawyers from 2014 to 2016, providing ongoing technical support in relation to numerous cases involving conflict-related sexual violence, including the landmark Sepur Zarco case, which resulted in the conviction of two military officers for sexual slavery both as a war crime and as a crime against humanity.[1]
Watch this fifteen-minute documentary about the Sepur Zarco case.
The PJI legal team returned to Guatemala in 2020 to support the victim lawyers and prosecutors preparing the trial indictment in Guatemala’s third genocide case (the “Maya Ixil Genocide Case”) and preparing for the attendant evidentiary hearing.[2]
PJI’s work in Guatemala was interrupted by the pandemic and other factors beyond our control.
A new administration was elected and took office in January 2024, with an apparent openness toward international crimes accountability. This event has cracked open a window of opportunity for cases to move forward, but it’s still very much an uphill battle against pro-military government factions.
In early February 2025, PJI resumed our engagement with victim lawyers and with investigators actively pursuing international crimes cases in the Guatemalan courts.
Read more about the context of war crimes trials in Guatemala.
[1] See generally, The International Justice Monitor: Guatemala Trials before the national courts of Guatemala. See also Reactions to Historic Sepur Zarco Judgment, International Justice Monitor (2016).
[2] See. e.g., Jo-Marie Burt and Paulo Estrada, “No One Told This to Me. I Saw It with My Own Eyes.” Survivor Addresses Court As Evidentiary Phase of Maya Ixil Genocide Case Nears Conclusion, International Justice Monitor (2020).