Between Legal Legacies and Rubber Bullets: The State of the Right to Peaceful Assembly in Chile

This paper explores the status of the right to peaceful assembly in Chile by analyzing the State’s response to the 2019 protests (“Estallido Social”) through the lens of national legal protections and international human rights obligations. Despite formal adherence to international human rights treaties, the paper identifies loopholes such as the national Decree No. 1,086 of 1983 coupled with ambiguous police protocols still curtails the right to peaceful assemblies. The application of the UN Human Rights Committee General Comment No. 37 on the right to peaceful to the handling of the Estallido Social shows how the large discretionary powers of the executive branch and lack of accountability facilitated the unprecedented violation of protesters’ human rights post-dictatorship through excessive use of force. The significant gap between constitutional as well as international legal guarantees and on-the-ground enforcement reveal fundamental transitional justice challenges that Chile needs to overcome to guarantee the full enjoyment of the right to peaceful assembly in line with its human rights obligations and democratic aspirations.