Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America

ISBN-13: 9781316508800 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 341 str.

Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos

Opis

An in-depth study of processes of judicial transformation that enabled the success of human rights trials in Latin America.

Recenzje

'… a fascinating comparative study of how Latin American judicial systems have reacted to the efforts of activists to pursue 'strategic litigation' to bring to account those guilty of human-rights abuses. The author focuses on the role of 'legal preferences'. … With a sophisticated comparative research design and impressive documentary and interview-based evidence, the study accounts for variation across and within the cases of Argentina, Mexico, and Peru. The author emphasizes the diffusion of technical know-how and socialization to change norms and identifies in support of rights-based jurisprudence. At the same time, he recognizes the process as a fundamentally political one. Technical expertise about legal remedies from international law can prove inadequate in the face of intransigent judges supporting the old order, and politicians must be pressured to replace them. Identifying the conditions under which 'replacement' supplements 'persuasion' is one of many contributions of this fine book.' Matthew Evangelista, Cornell University, New York

Spis treści

1. From unresponsive to responsive judiciaries; 2. Legal preferences and strategic litigation: a theory of judicial change; 3. Argentina: pedagogical interventions and replacement strategies in the struggle for human rights; 4. Peru: pedagogical interventions and human rights trials in unfriendly territory; 5. Mexico: an untamed judiciary and the failure of criminal prosecutions; 6. Comparative perspectives on the problem of legal preferences.