José Zalaquett, a Chilean lawyer who investigated human rights abuses during Augusto Pinochet’s regime — spending time in prison and in exile as a result — and then helped bring to light similar abuses elsewhere in the Americas as well as in Africa and the Middle East, died on Feb. 15 in Santiago, Chile’s capital. He was 77.

His daughter Valeria Zalaquett said the cause was Parkinson’s disease.

Mr. Zalaquett was admired not only for his efforts in Chile in the 1970s, when standing up to Pinochet was an act of courage, but also for his work years later in helping that country come to grips with its past after its return to democracy in 1990. He was a key figure on the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, writing much of its 1991 report, which detailed abuses under the dictatorship and suggested how to guard against a recurrence.

That became an area of expertise for him, not just in relation to Chile but to any country — Argentina, South Africa, Panama — that faced the challenge of restoring order and justice after a period of war or oppression.

Cristián Correa, a senior staff member at the International Center for Transitional Justice, a human rights group on whose advisory board Mr. Zalaquett served, was one of many to post tributes to him after his death. He “helped pioneer the field of transitional justice and inspired countless human rights defenders around the globe,” Mr. Correa wrote.