La Mano Extendida: The Interaction Between International Law and Negotiation as a Strategy to End Gang Warfare in El Salvador and Beyond

Abstract

In August 2012 and again in May 2013, gang members came face-toface with government leaders and representatives of the Organization of American States (OAS). The gang members arrived with hundreds of weapons; they were not there to use these weapons, but rather to lay down their arms as a sign of good faith in their struggle to negotiate a lasting peace. Over the past decade there has been increasing awareness of transnational gangs as a threat to regional security in the Americas. This led Silvia Aguilar, the El Salvadorian Vice-Minister of Justice, to say that “[d]omestic crime and its associated destabilization are now Latin America’s most serious security threat.” According to a 2012 report by the International Center for Migrant Human Rights, crime is now the main cause of displacement in Central America, and it is comparable to the displacement caused by civil wars in the region in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2011, the Geneva Declaration’s Global Burden of Armed Violence Report named El Salvador the country with the world’s most violent deaths. Transnational gangs have been linked to shocking displays of violence, drug and human trafficking, as well as extortion. The regional and domestic strategies of the countries most affected have been a blend of suppression