The United Nations on Friday denounced the passage of a bill in Peru that bars prosecution of crimes against humanity committed before 2002, saying it ran contrary to international law.
Peru's Congress last month passed the bill which could benefit convicted ex-president Alberto Fujimori and hundreds of former soldiers accused of abuses.
If signed into law by Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, the legislation will scrap ongoing investigations into crimes committed during Peru's internal conflict, which left some 69,000 dead and 21,000 disappeared between 1980 and 2000.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement he deeply regretted the legislation which would set a statute of limitations for such crimes.
"The law contravenes the country's obligations under international law and is a troubling development, amid a broader backlash against human rights and the rule of law in Peru.
"Lack of accountability for these crimes, whenever committed, risks endangering the rights to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence for thousands of victims of grave violations in Peru."
Fujimori was sent to prison in 2009 over massacres committed by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 in which 25 people, including a child, were killed in what the government said were anti-terrorist operations.
Last December, Peru's Constitutional Court ordered him freed for humanitarian reasons, reinstating a pardon that was first granted in 2017 but revoked by the Supreme Court two years later.
Fujimori, 85 and in failing health, is also facing trial over the killing by soldiers of six farmers in a separate case from 1992.