Latin America and the Caribbean

Read On! ‘Human Security and Human Rights under International Law: The Protections Offered to Persons Confronting Structural Vulnerability’

/ Dorothy Estrada-Tanck / 1 Comment

I am thrilled to post for the first time in IntLawGrrls and to share the publication of my book Human Security and Human Rights under International Law: The Protections Offered to Persons Confronting Structural Vulnerability (Hart Publishing, 2016).

This book considers the potential of human security as a protective tool within the international law of human rights. Indeed, it seems surprising given the centrality of human security to the human experience, that its connection with human rights had not yet been explored in a truly systematic way. The book attempts to address that gap in the literature and sustains that the human rights of persons, particularly those facing structural vulnerability, can be addressed more adequately if studied through the complementary lens of human security and not under human rights law alone. It takes both a legal and interdisciplinary approach, recognizing that human security and its relationship with human rights cuts across disciplinary boundaries.

Human security with its axis of freedom from fear, from want and from indignity, can more integrally encompass the inter-connected risks faced by individuals and groups in vulnerable conditions. At the same time, human rights law provides the normative legal grounding usually lacking in human security. International human rights norms, individualistic in nature and firstly enacted more than sixty years ago, present limits which translate into lack of protection for people globally. As a result, the collective and contextual conditions undergone by persons can be better met through the broader and more recent notion of human security, which emphasizes ‘critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) threats’, and accentuates socioeconomic vulnerabilities as authentic security concerns. Indeed, as signaled by Sadako Ogata, human security is ‘the emerging paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities’.

The analysis follows a two-part approach. Firstly, it evaluates convergences between human security and all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural –and constructs a general framework for thought and action, the ‘human security – human rights synergy’. Secondly, it goes on to explore the practical application of this framework in the law and case-law of UN, European, Inter-American and African human rights bodies in the thematic cores of 1) violence against women and girls (VAW); 2) undocumented migrants and other non-citizens such as asylum-seekers and refugees; converging in 3) a particular examination of the conditions of female undocumented migrants. In the last chapter, the book systematizes this evidence to reveal and propose added values of human security to human rights law; and inversely, it indicates how human rights standards/indicators can deliver a needed more precise, normatively grounded and operational conception of human security.

These ‘interpretative synergies’ offer promise for shifting the boundaries of international human rights law: in constructing integrative approaches to fill legal gaps, better prevention and addressing protectively collective threats, and –in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- creating an ‘enabling environment’ to fulfil all human rights, especially for those not only confronting isolated moments of risk or individual human rights violations, but rather conditions of structural vulnerability affecting their everyday lives. Continue reading →

Nuevo libro para abogados hispano- y angloparlantes/New Book for Lawyers Who Speak Both Spanish and English

/ S.I. Strong, Katia Fach Gómez and Laura Carballo Piñeiro / Leave a comment

(English version follows)

Tres mujeres y profesoras de derecho: S.I. Strong de la Universidad de Missouri (Estados Unidos), Katia Fach Gómez de la Universidad de Zaragoza (España) y Laura Carballo Piñeiro de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (España) tenemos el honor de presentar el libro Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes: Culturas jurídicas, términos jurídicos y prácticas jurídicas/ Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices  (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2016). Este trabajo supone una plasmación por escrito de algunas de las características más relevantes de nuestras carreras profesionales: trayectorias académicas y de práctica de la abogacía internacional desarrolladas en español e inglés, y en estrecho contacto con las comunidades jurídicas latinoamericana, europea y estadounidense. En consonancia con ello, la obra que hemos elaborado permite que abogados y estudiantes de derecho que hablan inglés y español adquieran fluidez jurídica en un segundo idioma. Realizar dicho esfuerzo es extremadamente importante no sólo para abogados especializados en derecho internacional, sino también para abogados dedicados al derecho nacional pero que tratan con clientes cuya lengua materna es un idioma extranjero.

La forma en que “Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes” involucra a abogados y estudiantes de derecho en la práctica jurídica bilingüe es única por diversos motivos. En primer lugar, y dado que la mayoría de los abogados bilingües trabajan con otros abogados y con clientes que cuentan con unos orígenes legales y culturales muy variados, el libro no se limita a analizar unas jurisdicciones concretas. Por el contrario, el libro ofrece información sobre diversos países hispanoparlantes (fundamentalmente, España y México) y angloparlantes (fundamentalmente, Estados Unidos y Reino Unido). En segundo lugar, la monografía contextualiza la información, no sólo ubicando el nuevo vocabulario y los principios legales en el contexto lingüístico apropiado –el libro es completamente bilingüe-, sino también ofreciendo abundantes comparaciones con la legislación y la práctica de otras jurisdicciones. En tercer lugar, este tipo de análisis permite que los abogados y estudiantes de derecho aprecien las diferencias existentes en las culturas jurídicas, empresariales y sociales relevantes. Ello ayuda a los lectores a no incurrir en ofensas que puedan derivarse de problemas de comunicación involuntarios. El libro también explica por qué existen dichas diferencias y cuál es su fundamento en un contexto jurídico determinado.

Profundizar en la comprensión a través de barreras nacionales, sociales y culturales es un objetivo esencial de un mundo cada vez más pluralizado. Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes es una herramienta muy útil para aquellos que trabajan cruzando fronteras lingüísticas. Como este libro de 700 páginas demuestra, no hay que temer a las diferencias, sino que hemos de alegrarnos de que la diversidad jurídica y lingüística exista.

***

unnamedThree law professors – S.I. Strong of the University of Missouri, Katia Fach Gómez of the University of Zaragoza and Laura Carballo Piñeiro of the University of Santiago de Compostela – have the honor of presenting their new book, Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes: Culturas jurídicas, términos jurídicos y prácticas jurídicas (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2016).  This work reflects some of the characteristics that are most relevant to our professional careers as academics and practitioners working in both English and Spanish, and involving jurisdictions in Latin America, Europe and the United States.  Consistent with that, the book that we have written helps lawyers and law students who speak Spanish and English become legally fluent in their second language.  This effort is extremely important not only for specialists in international law, but also for domestic lawyers whose clients speak different languages.

 

Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes” introduces lawyers and law students to bilingual legal practice in several ways.  First, the book does not focus solely on single jurisdictions, since most bilingual lawyers work with clients and co-counsel from a variety of legal and cultural backgrounds.  Instead, the book offers information on several English-speaking nations (primarily the U.S. and the U.K.) and Spanish-speaking countries (primarily Spain, Mexico and Argentina).  Second, the text seeks to contextualize the information, not only by placing the new vocabulary and legal principles in the appropriate linguistic setting (the book is entirely bilingual) but by providing extensive comparisons to the law and practice of other jurisdictions.  Third, the discussion helps lawyers and law students appreciate differences in the relevant legal, business and social cultures, thereby helping them avoid giving offense through any inadvertent miscommunications, and explains why those differences arose and why they make sense in that particular legal environment.

 

Increasing understanding across national, social and cultural lines is an important goal in our increasingly pluralistic world, and Comparative Law for Spanish-English Speaking Lawyers provides a useful tool for those who work across linguistic lines.  As this 700+ page text shows, legal and linguistic differences need not be feared but can instead be celebrated.

 

The “Rights of Aliens” in Brazil – Beyond the use of a Mistaken Term

/ Emília Lana de Freitas Castro / 4 Comments

The “rights of aliens” in Brazil – beyond the use of a mistaken term

As it is widely known, the settlement of people in Brazil mainly occurred through immigration of the Portuguese, as well as of the people being brought from Africa (because of the Atlantic slave trade). Now, however, Brazil receives people from many different nations. These newcomers glimpse in Brazil the opportunity to undertake their businesses, complete or start their studies, or even escape from dire situations in their home countries.

According to Brazil’s last census, there were 431,319 foreigners living in Brazil in 2010.[1] In comparison to the census of 2000 (510,067 foreigners), the number of foreigners in the country has decreased. [2] However, the last census did not include either the massive inflow of Haitians Brazil has been receiving since the end of 2010, nor the current global refugee crisis, which Brazil, in a smaller proportion, is also experiencing.[3]

Foreigners in Brazil have their rights guaranteed by the Brazilian Foreigners’ Statute, which regulates the entrance, permanence, and compulsory departure of a foreigner in the Brazilian territory.[4] This Statute is, together with some specific refugees’ protection instruments as well as with the Brazilian Constitution, the most important legal instrument for the protection of all foreigners in Brazil.

The Brazilian Constitution was brought to life after the Foreigners’ Statute and it grants an equal treatment of both Brazilians and foreigners. Article 5 of the Constitution states that all people are equal before the law, i.e., all Brazilians and foreigners residing in Brazil are entitled to the inviolability of the right to life, freedom, equality, security and property: the so-called fundamental rights.[5] From the literal interpretation of Article 5, it could be understood that only the foreigners residing in Brazil have their fundamental rights guaranteed. However, the doctrinal interpretation[6] and the courts[7]  understand that the text of this article takes into account all immigrants, including the nonresidents in Brazil.

Further, according to Article 95 of the Brazilian Foreigners’ Statute, foreigners living in Brazil are entitled to the same legal treatment as Brazilian citizens.

In April 2016, however, some of the fundamental rights of foreigners living in Brazil were jeopardized. The National Association of Federal Police Officers (FANAPEF) has issued a polemic press release on its website. That press release recalled that, in the territory of Brazil, foreigners are prohibited from not only supporting any political position, but also from taking part in any demonstration or from organizing and taking part on reunions of any nature.

Less than one month after this press release, for example, an Italian citizen who works as a professor for a Federal University in the State of Minas Gerais was under formal police investigation for being active inside political parties, taking some political actions and taking part in demonstrations.[8]

FANAPEF has supported its press release on Article 107 of Brazilian Foreigners’ Statute, which states (among other points) that foreigners cannot exercise political activities in Brazilian territory, and cannot (directly or indirectly) interject into Brazil´s public issues. In this sense, the same article prohibits foreigners from maintaining any political society, group or entity or from organizing demonstrations that aims at discussing either Brazilian internal issues, or political issues of their home countries.

Continue reading →

Beyond Trade & Travel: Normalizing US-Cuba Relations

/ Andrea M. Ewart, Esq. / 1 Comment

While much attention has been focused on the changes to ease travel and trade between the United States and Cuba, President Obama’s Policy Directive on US-Cuba Normalization lays out a broader vision for normalization of relations and mutual cooperation between the two neighbors. Issued October 14, 2016 (along with other regulatory changes discussed here) the Directive also lays out six priority objectives for normalization and actions to implement them.obama-castro-handshake

Among other things, the vision laid out by President Obama’s Policy Directive includes – travel to Cuba for U.S. persons that is safe and secure from natural and man-made hazards and regional cooperation with Cuba towards these goals, and a strengthened U.S. position in international systems by removing an irritant from its relationships with allies and partners and gaining support for a rules-based order.

The six U.S. medium-term objectives for US-Cuban policy are to:

  1. Continue high-level and technical engagement;
  2. Continue to encourage people-to-people linkages;
  3. Seek to expand opportunities for U.S. companies to engage with Cuba;
  4. Support further economic reforms by the Cuban government;
  5. Expand dialogue with Cuba in international fora; and
  6. Seek greater Cuban government respect for human rights while recognizing that the United States must leave the future of Cuba up to the Cuban people.

To facilitate the effective implementation of this Policy Directive, U.S. departments and agencies will have the following roles and responsibilities:

National Security Council (NSC) staff will provide ongoing policy coordination and oversight of the implementation of overall Cuba strategy and of the Directive.

The Department of State will continue to be responsible for formulating U.S. policy toward and coordinating relations with Cuba. This includes supporting the operations of Embassy Havana and ensuring it has adequate resources and staffing, issuing visas, refugee processing, promoting educational and cultural exchanges, coordinating democracy programs, and political and economic reporting.

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) will coordinate with the State Department to oversee multilateral issues involving Cuba at the United Nations.

The Department of the Treasury is responsible for implementation of the economic embargo restrictions and licensing policies.

 The Department of Commerce will continue to support the development of the Cuban private sector, entrepreneurship, commercial law development, and intellectual property rights as well as environmental protection and storm prediction.

The Department of Defense (DOD) will continue to take steps to expand the defense relationship with Cuba where it will advance U.S. interests, with an initial focus on humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and counternarcotics in the Caribbean.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will, together with the Department of Justice, engage with the Cuban government to combat terrorism and transnational organized crime.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will, together with DHS, engage with the Cuban government to combat terrorism and transnational organized crime.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) will support exchanges with the Cuban government in areas of mutual interest, particularly on formalization of small businesses and to spur the growth of new enterprises.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative will provide trade policy coordination in international fora and prepare for negotiations to normalize and expand US-Cuba trade.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) will work to increase U.S. food and agricultural exports to Cuba.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in accordance with the June 2016 Memorandum of Understanding between HHS and the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, will collaborate with Cuban counterparts in the areas of public health, research, and biomedical sciences, including collaboration to confront the Zika virus, dengue, chikungunya, and other arboviruses.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will coordinate the U.S. response to natural and man-made environmental disasters.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) will continue to develop air and surface transportation links between the United States and Cuba and provide required regulatory and safety oversight of transportation providers and systems.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) will support efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and seek opportunities for engagement with Cuban counterparts on areas of common interest and information exchange on mutual threats.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) will continue to cooperate with Cuba on marine protected areas and to engage Cuban counterparts to finalize arrangements on wildlife conservation, terrestrial national protected areas, and seismic records.

In issuing the Directive, President Obama stated:

This new directive consolidates and builds upon the changes we’ve already made, promotes transparency by being clear about our policy and intentions, and encourages further engagement between our countries and our people.

This clarity and transparency is important given the long and complicated history of US-Cuba relations that dates back to the 1880s. The Directive is also aimed at ensuring the recent changes in US-Cuba policy outlive the Obama Administration. We can hope that the next Directive will implement the lifting of the outdated and ineffectual embargo, the low point in this history.

Violence against trade unionists, application of labor laws at issue in Colombia’s bid for OECD membership

/ Tequila J. Brooks / Leave a comment

In July 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor accepted the first labor petition filed under Chapter 17 of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA).  Filed by Colombian trade unions and the AFL-CIO, the fundamental argument of the petition is that the Government of Colombia failed to meet its commitments under the 2011 U.S.-Colombia Labor Rights Action Plan (LAP) which were a pre-condition for the U.S. to extend preferential trade benefits to Colombia.  USDOL’s public report on the petition is due in January 2017 unless USDOL determines more time is necessary.

Critical among those commitments were (a) effective implementation a new legal framework to investigate and punish threats and violence against trade unionists; (b) putting a stop to employers’ use of intermediaries and certain types of employment contracts to chill representative trade unionism and avoid compliance with labor laws; and (c) ensuring that labor inspection, administrative and dispute resolution processes respond to worker complaints and deter employer violations.  Over 2,500 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia since the 1980s.  These murders and threats did not stop after the U.S.-Colombia TPA went into effect in 2012.

A lot is at stake this year for Colombia.  Not only did the Government of Colombia and FARC agree to a Peace Accord ending the 52-year-old Civil War, but Colombia is being considered for accession to the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), where it would join Mexico and Chile as the only Latin American members.

Many of the labor-related commitments the Government of Colombia made during TPA negotiations are also required for accession to the OECD.  If USDOL’s Chapter 17 report confirms petitioners’ allegations, Colombia could be subject to international dispute resolution and lose trade benefits under the TPA – and could jeopardize Colombia’s bid to become a member of the OECD.

The OECD formally launched Colombia’s accession process in October 2013.  This rigorous process subjects Colombia to assessment under 250 legal instruments and formal evaluation by 21 separate committees, including the Employment, Labor & Social Affairs Committee.

The OECD’s Roadmap for Colombia’s accession outlines several labor-related policy goals to be met, including:  improvement of labor market opportunities for women, youth, older people and the unskilled; a financially and socially sustainable retirement and social support system; assistance for the poor and out of work; and better management of migration flows to foster integration of immigrants and their children.  Critically, the Roadmap calls for Colombia to implement policies to ensure effective governance of the labor market and to “ensure the full respect of labour rights, with a particular focus on the rights and safety of trade union representatives” (p. 18).

The OECD released its review of Colombia’s Labour Market and Social Policies in January 2016. Much of the OECD’s analysis mirrors the issues raised by Colombian unions and the AFL-CIO in their USDOL petition.  Three of these areas are: (1) inadequate protection of trade unionists from ongoing threats and violence; (2) shortcomings  in labor law administration and enforcement, including weak labor inspection and fine collection processes; and (3) the tendency among Colombian employers to utilize civil law contracts so workers do not benefit from rights in the Colombian Labor Code and making it difficult for workers to effectively organize independent trade unions and bargain collectively.

The OECD observes that 20 trade unionists were murdered in 2014 and that there were over 300 assaults, threats, harassment and other kinds of violence perpetrated against trade unionists that same year.  The OECD cites conflicting reports about the motivation for murders of and violence against trade unionists – whether as a result of their role as trade unionists or local leaders standing up to armed groups – but emphasizes that improved prosecution of the crimes in close contact with trade unions during investigation would promote greater clarity as to why the violence occurred.  While the Colombian protection program for trade unionists has improved, the program faces a number of challenges such as budget cuts, a lengthy and laborious process for assessing threat risk against trade unionists and corruption scandals that demonstrate inadequate controls.

In addition to discussing and assessing fundamental labor rights issues, the OECD’s review of Colombia’s labor and social policies highlights the country’s need for better social security (including unemployment) policies that are more broadly applied.  Over 52% of Colombia’s workforce is self-employed, with 83% in unregistered businesses not covered by social security.

Observing that comprehensive reform to the Colombian social security and pension system is required, the OECD highlights a number of specific policy recommendations to incentivize more Colombians to participate in social security.  Only about 35% of the Colombian population in retirement age receives a pension – in contrast to 90% on average in the OECD.  Acknowledging Colombia’s introduction of a new unemployment protection system, the OECD notes that the system is underfunded and provides limited support to job seekers.

Many of the structural labor market issues noted by the OECD such as informal work and non-participation in the social security system have a bigger impact on women than men.  Despite the fact that female labor market participation in Colombia has increased over the last few decades, 20% of women aged 16-24 are not active in the labor market or studying (Not in Employment, Education and Training or NEET) compared to 1% of men.  In addition to higher unemployment rates than men and lower participation in formal employment, women in Colombia suffer from a “large and persistently stable gender pay gap” (p. 16).  Fewer women receive health protection or contribute toward a retirement pension so look forward to poverty in their old age.   Laws were passed in Colombia in 2010 and 2011 to make sex discrimination in pay unlawful and extend maternity leave from 12 to 14 weeks, but many Colombian women do not benefit from these protections because they work in the informal sector.

Critics have argued that the Government of Colombia may not be ready for or be deserving of OECD membership or special access to markets and free trade benefits because of ongoing human and labor rights violations.  This may be true.  The Colombian case shows that OECD and U.S. conditionality can contribute to a safer and better society in Colombia though many challenges remain.

También de este lado hay sueños

/ Jaya Ramji-Nogales / Leave a comment

With protestthe arrival of the Democratic National Convention, protesters have converged on Philadelphia.  At least for the moment, the historic selection of the first female presidential candidate in U.S. history seems to have been overshadowed by yet another e-mail debacle.  The New York Times reported yesterday on backers of Bernie Sanders who surrounded City Hall, making their voices heard.  Today, another protest (pictured at left) marched past my front door, chanting, “Not one more deportation!” and asking the Democrats to be the anti-Trump party.  As one woman’s sign read, “También de este lado hay sueños” — there are also dreams on this side.  President Obama and his Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, have shamefully trampled on too many of those dreams.  Here’s hoping that Hillary Clinton continues to propound more humane immigration policies, and that immigrant voters can make their dreams count in the November election.

El Salvador’s Constitutional Court Invalidates Amnesty Law; Will Prosecutions Follow?

/ Naomi Roht-Arriaza / 1 Comment

After years of deliberations, the Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled on July 13 that the country’s 1993 amnesty law is unconstitutional and must be stricken. The 4-1 decision, although long expected, has caused uproar in El Salvador, where neither side in the civil war has been supportive of prosecutions for past crimes and where rampant criminality and insecurity are present-day scourges. The four-person majority of judges Sidney Blanco, Florentín Meléndez, Rodolfo González and Eliseo Ortiz, grounded the decision in the rights of the victims to access to justice, to judicial protection of fundamental rights, and to full reparations. It makes extensive use of international law, especially the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It will provide new hope for the long-suffering victims of the country’s twelve-year civil war, but will also complicate the country’s politics and challenge a weak and compromised prosecutors’ office.

The complaint was brought by a number of NGO representatives and victims of rights violations, alleging that the amnesty law was illegally passed and violated El Salvador’s international commitments and constitution. The 1993 amnesty was passed to deal with the crimes of both sides in a civil war that cost some 75,000 lives. The amnesty was passed just three days after a U.N. sponsored Truth Commission issued its report. The Commission found that most of the massacres, assassinations, forced disappearances and torture committed had been carried out by the armed forces or by death squads connected to them.

The text of the decision

The Court first dismissed the procedural illegality argument, but used the occasion to note that the amnesty was not, as the Prosecutors’ office argued, a part of the peace accords that ended the civil war. On the contrary, those accords had stressed the need to end impunity for human rights violations. The Court thus confronted head-on one of the central myths of the country’s political classes, that amnesty was required by the peace accords. Rather, the Court held that the legislature had to balance the need for reconciliation with the need for justice for the victims. It cited with approval in this regard the 1992 Law of National Reconciliation, which provided amnesty for political crimes, but expressly excluded “grave violent events from January 1, 1980 on, which have left their mark on society, and demand the most urgent public knowledge of the truth” that were mentioned by the U.N.-backed Truth Commission.

In its July 13 judgment, the Court held that the amnesty is unconstitutional as applied to all crimes against humanity and those war crimes that violate the fundamental guarantees of Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions, committed by either side in the conflict. The amnesty violates the country’s international obligations to investigate and prosecute under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, Protocol II, and the constitutional right of the victim of a crime to civil damages and to judicial protection of fundamental rights. Regarding war crimes, although Protocol II calls for the “widest possible amnesty,” that provision must be read in light of all the country’s international obligations, and the amnesty cannot be absolute. With respect to crimes against humanity, those crimes are by definition not subject to amnesty or statutes of limitations and are subject to universal jurisdiction.

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Transitional Justice: What is the role of law in bringing imaginative and imaginary peace to Colombia?

/ Kristin Bergtora Sandvik / Leave a comment

This blog post is based on a reflection presented at the “Transitional Justice as Legal Field, Site and Imagination” panel at the Transnational Law Summer Institute, Kings College, London June 29, 2016. I am grateful to Prabha Kotiswaran and Peer Zumbansen for the invitation.  

What is the role of law in bringing imaginative and imaginary peace to Colombia?

June 23 2016 was described by Colombian and international media as the “last day of the war”, adopting FARC’s hashtag #ElÚltimoDíaDeLaGuerra. The signing of a bilateral ceasefire between the Colombian government and FARC formally ended hostilities in the world’s longest running war. The signing of a peace agreement is expected to take place during the summer of 2016.

To the overlapping academic fields of human rights, transitional justice and post-conflict reconstruction, the sophisticated Colombian transitional justice process is attractive and will likely be highly influential for the coming decade, both as an example of success and of failure. There is also a significant risk that scholars (outside Colombia) will embrace the Colombian experience either deterministically — as an example of systemic yet de-historicized power imbalances — or as a fantastical  and outsized legal progress narrative that can serve as an endless source of political models, constitutional processes and legal arguments suitable for embellishing the transitional justice juggernaut.

My argument in the following is based on one big supposition: I will put forward the idea that approached from a law and social change perspective, the Colombian transitional justice project is necessarily a failure foreseen.

“Everybody” knows that positive peace is not going to happen through legislation, decisions by a progressive Colombia Constitutional Court or the signing of a formal agreement. This Everybody also knows that if positive peace happens, it will not happen soon.  At the same time, it is easy to imagine that a year from now, politicians, ordinary Colombians, pundits and academics will dismiss the transitional justice legislation and the peace agreement as partial or total failures for their inability to perform the impossible expected by the Everybody; namely ending violence, providing reparations and changing the structural inequality that is the source of much of the violence.

However, I think that precisely at this juncture, as a community professionally engaged in the business of imagining peace and transitional justice, we need to reflect on what the critical takeaways from and beyond this failure foreseen could be. We may find that imagined and imaginative outcomes turn out to be imaginary. But this is not enough, it’s not even a starting point. We need to go beyond that.

Hence, after briefly describing the Colombian peace process, I will map out three sets of issues that could serve as tentative points of departure for critical reflection. This includes:

  • How we can gauge the meaning of the Colombian transitional justice process for Colombian citizenry, citizenship and the state;
  • The implications of Colombia being both outlaw and legal outlier for how we consider the role and place of the law in creating durable peace;
  • A first attempt to think through some of the general lessons Colombia can have for transitional justice practice and scholarship.

Peace and conflict as statecraft

The armed conflict between the government and FARC began in 1964. Separate negotiations have previously led to the demobilization of smaller guerillas (MAQL, M-19; EPL) and an agenda for formal negotiations has now been agreed with ELN.  However, Colombia has been at war or seen violent societal conflict for most of the time since the late 1890s. Colombian peace processes and attempts at political, legal and land reform are a fixture of Colombian statecraft. The last round of peace talks with FARC ended with fiasco in 2002. From 2003 president Uribe engaged in a much-criticized effort to demobilize the paramilitary AUC, with a basis in the 2005 Justice and Peace Law. Despite its shortcomings, it must be remembered that this framework has provided a platform for the current process.

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CICIG’s investigations show web of corruption in Guatemalan state. Now, what’s next?

/ Mirte Postema / Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, CICIG (International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala) revealed that the Partido Popular (PP), the former governing party of now disgraced and imprisoned former president Otto Pérez Molina and his—also incarcerated—vice president Roxana Baldetti, was engaged in a web of corruption far more extensive than initially thought. Shortly after reaching power, the party, under the direction of President Pérez Molina, had established an organized criminal structure that had seized the state, and developed an elaborate scheme of collusion between the local private sector and the state to enrich public servants and grant companies easy access to government contracts.

The revelations come just as the so-called Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras) are about to receive a large infusion of international assistance through the $750 million U.S. funded Alliance for Prosperity that, rather than being limited to security sector support, seeks to stimulate economic development and strengthen democratic institutions. But given what CICIG has now revealed, are Guatemala and the other recipients ready to adopt the structural changes necessary to effectively channel and apply these funds, to address corruption at its roots?

CICIG was established in 2007 under the auspices of the United Nations to investigate organized criminal networks with links to the state. It is bound by Guatemalan law and must work closely with the country’s Public Ministry. CICIG’s operations have had their ups and downs, as has been documented in a recent report by the Open Society Justice Initiative. However, under the current leadership of Colombian prosecutor Iván Velásquez, it has made important strides in uncovering corruption and eroding impunity of even some of the most powerful.

CICIG’s most important case to date was brought to light in April 2015, when the investigatory body revealed a corruption scheme within the country’s customs authority. That case, named “La Línea,” implicated then-President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice-President Roxana Baldetti, as well as other high-level officials. The massive public outcry that followed led to the resignation of both the President and the Vice-President. Since then, CICIG and the Public Ministry have continued their investigations, and in the following months uncovered more such corruption rings involving high-level officials and prominent businesspeople.

Additional information retrieved through searches and phone taps exposed an even more extensive scheme than originally thought. In June 2016, CICIG concluded that the PP, the former government party, rather than having engaged in occasional (but serious) acts of corruption, was essentially an organized criminal enterprise whose primary purpose was to reach power to gain access to public resources for private gain. Continue reading →

IA Court: Is Forced Sterilization TCIDT?

/ Cindy Soohoo & Suzannah Phillips / Leave a comment

Earlier this month Ciara O’Connell’s blog post alerted us that I.V. v. Bolivia is expected to be the first Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IA Court) case to apply the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women to a reproductive rights case.  The case is exciting for other reasons as well. It is the IA Court’s  first case involving non-consensual sterilization and provides an important opportunity for the Court to condemn forced sterilization, to adopt clear standards concerning informed consent, and to join U.N. human rights bodies and the European Court of Human Rights in recognizing that forced sterilization violates women’s fundamental human rights to personal integrity and autonomy, to be free from gender discrimination and violence, to privacy and family life, and, as CUNY Law School’s Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic and Women Enabled International recently argued in our amicus brief to the IA Court, the right to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) or torture.

In order to ensure that states fully recognize and address violations of women’s human rights and to overcome the inherent bias in human rights law that has historically prioritized violations that disproportionately impact men, it is critical for international and regional human rights bodies to recognize the gender dimensions of torture and CIDT. Non-consensual sterilization falls squarely within the parameters of CIDT, and in some cases torture, under international human rights law: the practice, which disproportionately affects women, inflicts permanent bodily harm, as well as severe physical and mental health consequences, and is often intentionally carried out for discriminatory purposes. Indeed, forced sterilization is frequently motivated by animus towards a specific group (e.g., immigrants, ethnic or national minorities, or indigenous women) or by discriminatory attitudes that certain people should not have children (e.g., women with disabilities, women living with HIV, transgender individuals). In a series of cases against Slovakia concerning the forced sterilization of Roma women, the European Court of Human Rights has recognized that that forced sterilization violates Art. 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture recently reiterated that forced sterilization violates a person’s right to be free from torture or ill-treatment.

The case also provides an interesting opportunity for the IA Court to directly consider and condemn gender bias in the health care context. The circumstances surrounding the forced sterilization of I.V., a Peruvian refugee, seem to illustrate the all too common scenario of medical providers making medical decisions on behalf of women who are deemed unfit or unable to make their own choices because of patriarchal and stereotypical attitudes.

According to the petitioner, I.V. went to a Bolivian public hospital that predominantly serves poor women, many of whom are migrant or indigenous women, to deliver her third child. During the c–section, the doctors decided that a future pregnancy would be dangerous for I.V. and performed a tubal ligation. The parties dispute whether consent was obtained during the surgical procedure. (Because circumstances during labor and immediately preceding or after delivery are inconsistent with voluntary patient choice, medical ethical standards, U.N. human rights bodies and the European Court of Human Rights make clear that if I.V. had given consent at this time, it would have been invalid). Continue reading →