Since the close of the Cold War, the international community has created a variety of legal insti... more Since the close of the Cold War, the international community has created a variety of legal institutions designed to step in when state justice systems fail to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ad hoc criminal tribunals, the hybrid tribunals (such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the use of universal jurisdiction by national courts are among a new generation of courtly mechanisms designed to hold wrongdoers criminally accountable, state justice systems notwithstanding. These mechanisms represent an era of international judicial involvement in what used to be a more exclusively sovereign matter—the response to mass crimes against civilian populations. Accordingly, they have engendered a slew of scholarship devoted to analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, individually and as a group.
Since the detention of General Pinochet in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity, ... more Since the detention of General Pinochet in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity, Chile's judges have sentenced more former officials of the military regime for human rights violations than judges of any other country in Latin America. This article argues that the prosecutorial turn reflects the judiciary's attempt to atone for its complicity with the dictatorship. The London arrest created pressure for prosecution of Pinochet‐era human rights violations; but it is the contest over the judiciary's legacy, as an important piece of postauthoritarian memory struggles, that explains why Chile's notoriously illiberal judiciary ceded to that pressure. By reconceptualizing judicial culture as contested, heterogeneous, and dynamic, this article opens the door to richer understandings of judicial politics, transitional justice, and the reception of international human rights.
Over the past decade, scholarship on the Inter-American System of Human Rights has moved beyond t... more Over the past decade, scholarship on the Inter-American System of Human Rights has moved beyond the tradition of doctrinal scholarship to examine the political dynamics of the Inter-American System. Through this line of inquiry, we have gained insights into issues of compliance, resistance and backlash, as well as the dynamics of judicial dialogue and cross-court influence. But there is a blind spot in scholarship on the Inter-American Human Rights system, and it is hindering our ability to understand its evolution in the 21st century. This brief essay is a call for more studies with a socio-legal sensibility, with a hat tip to those who have already begun to inquire in this direction. It is time to focus not only on state actors but also on civil society, and not only on the organs of the Inter-American System of Human Rights as institutional actors, but also the individual actors within those institutions.
ABSTRACT Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change in Latin America. Tod... more ABSTRACT Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change in Latin America. Today, a turn-of-the-century crop of constitutions grants higher courts greater powers; provides long lists of social, economic, and cultural rights; and assigns international treaties constitutional status "or better" within the hierarchy of laws. High courts, in turn, have begun to cast themselves as defenders of rights and to intervene in significant political controversies. And, correspondingly, political claims more often take legal forms. The growing importance of law, legal discourse and legal institutions in the political arena has led scholars to report that a "judicialization of politics" is underway in the region. Our volume explores this landscape of changing legal cultures. Starting with the assumption that formalism is no longer a useful concept for describing Latin American legal cultures "and was in any case always an oversimplification" we explore the repertoires of legal ideas and practices that accompany, cause, and are a consequence of the judicialization of politics.
El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Hum... more El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Humanos; un grupo multidisciplinario de expertos internacionales del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (SIDH), reunido con el objeto de obtener perspectivas más profundas en torno a tres categorías de cuestiones de especial relevancia para el SIDH: Cumplimiento e Impacto, Política Institucional, y Comparación Interregional. El informe concluye con una formulación de una agenda futura de investigación y un conjunto de concretas contribuciones por parte de los académicos para el fortalecimiento del SIDH.
The power of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) to shape government behavior varie... more The power of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) to shape government behavior varies greatly from country to country. All states subject to the Court’s jurisdiction accept its authority to adjudicate disputes, and all take at least some meaningful steps toward judgment compliance. Even the Chavez government, despite loudly campaigning against the Inter-American System (IAS) and eventually removing Venezuela from the Court’s jurisdiction, occasionally paid victims pursuant to Court orders. But in some states the Court’s judgments play a far greater role: they are untethered from the particular dispute that gives rise to them and take on a life as law-like rules that guide the subsequent behavior of public actors and the outcomes of disputes that never reach the Court. In some states the Court’s judgments even come to shape policymaking and public debates, constraining the range of options that are put on the table. The Colombian Constitutional Court, for example, regula...
El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Hum... more El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Humanos; un grupo multidisciplinario de expertos internacionales del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (SIDH), reunido con el objeto de obtener perspectivas más profundas en torno a tres categorías de cuestiones de especial relevancia para el SIDH: Cumplimiento e Impacto, Política Institucional, y Comparación Interregional. El informe concluye con una formulación de una agenda futura de investigación y un conjunto de concretas contribuciones por parte de los académicos para el fortalecimiento del SIDH.
Since the close of the Cold War, the international community has created a variety of legal insti... more Since the close of the Cold War, the international community has created a variety of legal institutions designed to step in when state justice systems fail to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ad hoc criminal tribunals, the hybrid tribunals (such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the use of universal jurisdiction by national courts are among a new generation of courtly mechanisms designed to hold wrongdoers criminally accountable, state justice systems notwithstanding. These mechanisms represent an era of international judicial involvement in what used to be a more exclusively sovereign matter—the response to mass crimes against civilian populations. Accordingly, they have engendered a slew of scholarship devoted to analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, individually and as a group.
Since the detention of General Pinochet in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity, ... more Since the detention of General Pinochet in London in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity, Chile's judges have sentenced more former officials of the military regime for human rights violations than judges of any other country in Latin America. This article argues that the prosecutorial turn reflects the judiciary's attempt to atone for its complicity with the dictatorship. The London arrest created pressure for prosecution of Pinochet‐era human rights violations; but it is the contest over the judiciary's legacy, as an important piece of postauthoritarian memory struggles, that explains why Chile's notoriously illiberal judiciary ceded to that pressure. By reconceptualizing judicial culture as contested, heterogeneous, and dynamic, this article opens the door to richer understandings of judicial politics, transitional justice, and the reception of international human rights.
Over the past decade, scholarship on the Inter-American System of Human Rights has moved beyond t... more Over the past decade, scholarship on the Inter-American System of Human Rights has moved beyond the tradition of doctrinal scholarship to examine the political dynamics of the Inter-American System. Through this line of inquiry, we have gained insights into issues of compliance, resistance and backlash, as well as the dynamics of judicial dialogue and cross-court influence. But there is a blind spot in scholarship on the Inter-American Human Rights system, and it is hindering our ability to understand its evolution in the 21st century. This brief essay is a call for more studies with a socio-legal sensibility, with a hat tip to those who have already begun to inquire in this direction. It is time to focus not only on state actors but also on civil society, and not only on the organs of the Inter-American System of Human Rights as institutional actors, but also the individual actors within those institutions.
ABSTRACT Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change in Latin America. Tod... more ABSTRACT Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change in Latin America. Today, a turn-of-the-century crop of constitutions grants higher courts greater powers; provides long lists of social, economic, and cultural rights; and assigns international treaties constitutional status "or better" within the hierarchy of laws. High courts, in turn, have begun to cast themselves as defenders of rights and to intervene in significant political controversies. And, correspondingly, political claims more often take legal forms. The growing importance of law, legal discourse and legal institutions in the political arena has led scholars to report that a "judicialization of politics" is underway in the region. Our volume explores this landscape of changing legal cultures. Starting with the assumption that formalism is no longer a useful concept for describing Latin American legal cultures "and was in any case always an oversimplification" we explore the repertoires of legal ideas and practices that accompany, cause, and are a consequence of the judicialization of politics.
El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Hum... more El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Humanos; un grupo multidisciplinario de expertos internacionales del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (SIDH), reunido con el objeto de obtener perspectivas más profundas en torno a tres categorías de cuestiones de especial relevancia para el SIDH: Cumplimiento e Impacto, Política Institucional, y Comparación Interregional. El informe concluye con una formulación de una agenda futura de investigación y un conjunto de concretas contribuciones por parte de los académicos para el fortalecimiento del SIDH.
The power of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) to shape government behavior varie... more The power of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) to shape government behavior varies greatly from country to country. All states subject to the Court’s jurisdiction accept its authority to adjudicate disputes, and all take at least some meaningful steps toward judgment compliance. Even the Chavez government, despite loudly campaigning against the Inter-American System (IAS) and eventually removing Venezuela from the Court’s jurisdiction, occasionally paid victims pursuant to Court orders. But in some states the Court’s judgments play a far greater role: they are untethered from the particular dispute that gives rise to them and take on a life as law-like rules that guide the subsequent behavior of public actors and the outcomes of disputes that never reach the Court. In some states the Court’s judgments even come to shape policymaking and public debates, constraining the range of options that are put on the table. The Colombian Constitutional Court, for example, regula...
El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Hum... more El presente informe contiene las conclusiones colectivas de la Red Interamericana de Derechos Humanos; un grupo multidisciplinario de expertos internacionales del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos (SIDH), reunido con el objeto de obtener perspectivas más profundas en torno a tres categorías de cuestiones de especial relevancia para el SIDH: Cumplimiento e Impacto, Política Institucional, y Comparación Interregional. El informe concluye con una formulación de una agenda futura de investigación y un conjunto de concretas contribuciones por parte de los académicos para el fortalecimiento del SIDH.
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