Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has signed into law an amnesty bill that grants impunity for serious crimes committed during the country's internal armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said today.
Peru's Congress passed the law on July 9, 2025, and President Boluarte signed it into law on August 13. It provides blanket amnesty to members of the Armed Forces, the police, and self-defense committees accused of or under investigation for alleged crimes committed during Peru's internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. It also mandates the release of people sentenced for crimes committed during the armed conflict who are over age 70.
"This law is quite simply a betrayal of Peruvian victims," said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "It undermines decades of efforts to ensure accountability for atrocities and weakens the country's rule of law even further."
On July 24, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Peru to refrain from carrying out the bill until the court analyzes the amnesty's compatibility with its previous orders to investigate abuses committed during the armed conflict.
On July 31, however, during a National Police ceremony in Lima, President Boluarte said that her government would move forward with the law regardless of the court's position.
During the armed conflict, Peruvian security forces committed grave abuses including many that constitute war crimes, such as extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and other serious human rights violations. According to the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, an estimated 70,000 people were killed and more than 20,000 disappeared between 1980 and 2000. Peruvian courts have issued final convictions in more than 150 cases and over 600 more remain pending, according to the National Human Rights Coordinator.
Under the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Peru has a legal obligation to investigate, prosecute, and punish serious human rights violations. Amnesty laws that block accountability for crimes such as extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and torture violate these obligations and deny victims their right to access justice.
The Boluarte administration, Congress, and other authorities have in recent years repeatedly defied orders from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In December 2023, the Constitutional Tribunal, in violation of Peru's obligations as a party to the American Convention on Human Rights, ordered the release of former President Alberto Fujimori, in office from 1990 to 2000, who was serving a 25-year sentence for serious human rights violations. Despite an order from the human rights court to Peru not to release Fujimori pending an assessment of the facts, the Boluarte government went ahead and released him.
In July 2024, Congress approved a bill establishing a statute of limitations for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed before 2003. The bill directly disregarded a specific order from the human rights court instructing Congress to suspend debate on the matter due to its apparent incompatibility with international human rights law. President Boluarte did not veto the bill, and it became law in August.
"Peru is joining the ranks of Nicaragua, Venezuela, and others that defy the Inter-American human rights system and, in doing so, dismiss the rights of victims," Goebertus said. "The amnesty bill should never have been made law and should be repealed."
