Memory Laws and the Human Rights Frame:

Commemoration has increasingly been framed as a human rights issue, as seen in various international resolutions and instruments particularly on reparations and on the right to truth. Against this backdrop, memory laws that codify state-sanctioned narratives of the past have also become more commonplace. While often demanded by international organisations and civil society organisations alike, these laws are also criticized for selectively hierarchizing historical events and groups. This paper connects this criticism with a general critique of international human rights law's emphasis on extraordinary violence and its potential role in stabilising the political status quo. Drawing on activist understandings informed by lived experiences of truth, memory, and past events, the human rights frame on memory politics is analysed as a potential means to channel demands for radical transformation into a more constrained legalistic discourse. Spain's Democratic Memory Law exemplifies this trend. Addressing the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship, it relies heavily on human rights rhetoric while preserving the myth of the »model transition« that is criticised for disregarding economic and social injustices continuous with the pre-democracy era.