Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America
Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America

Author: Armin von Bogdandy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-07-21

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0192515470

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This ground-breaking collection of essays outlines and explains the unique development of Latin American jurisprudence. It introduces the idea of the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL), an original Latin American path of transformative constitutionalism, to an Anglophone audience for the first time. It charts the key developments that have transformed the region and assesses the success of the constitutional projects that followed a period of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Coined by scholars who have been documenting, conceptualizing, and comparing the development of Latin American public law for more than a decade, the term ICCAL encompasses themes that cross national borders and legal fields, taking in constitutional law, administrative law, general public international law, regional integration law, human rights, and investment law. Not only does this volume map the legal landscape, it also suggests measures to improve society via due legal process and a rights-based, supranational and regionally rooted constitutionalism. The editors contend that with the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, common problems such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population from having a say in government, as well as corruption, hyper-presidentialism, and the weak normativity of the law can be combatted more effectively in future.

Constitutional Reasoning in Latin America and the Caribbean
Constitutional Reasoning in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author: Johanna Fröhlich

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-09-05

Total Pages: 535

ISBN-13: 1509960198

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This book examines the reasoning practice of 15 constitutional courts and supreme courts, including the Caribbean Commonwealth and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Enriched by empirical data, with which it strives to contribute to a constructive and well-informed debate, the volume analyses how Latin American courts justify their decisions. Based on original data and a region-specific methodology, the book provides a systematic analysis utilising more than 600 leading cases. It shows which interpretive methods and concepts are most favoured by Latin American courts, and which courts were the most prolific in their reasoning activities. The volume traces the features of judicial dialogue on a regional and sub-regional level and enables the evaluation and comparison of each country's reasoning culture in different epochs. The collection includes several graphs to visualise the changes and tendencies of the reasoning practices throughout time in the region, based on information gathered from the dataset. To better understand the current functioning and the future tendencies of courts in Latin America and the Caribbean, the volume illuminates how constitutional and supreme courts have actually been making their decisions in the selected landmark cases, which could also contribute to future successful litigation strategies for both national constitutional courts and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. This project was made possible due to the collaboration and funding provided by the Rule of Law Programme for Latin America of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Law School of the University of San Francisco de Quito.

UN Interventions and Democratization
UN Interventions and Democratization

Author: Carina Barbosa Gouvêa

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-21

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 3031327152

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This book analyzes United Nations (UN) interventions in the process of constitution making in states undergoing political change. It combines theoretical considerations of democracy and constitutionalism with empirical experiences and takes a critical perspective on the interventions developed by the United Nations in the processes of re-democratization. Presenting new empirical evidence on the substantive and procedural way in which the UN undertakes constitution building in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and East Timor, the book illustrates difficulties of these practices such as the promotion of popular participation, as well as an increasing Westernization, and to meet local needs. In consequence, the authors call for reforms of the actions and structural methods the UN to better align a legitimate constitutional order with the rule of law and democratic values. This book is aimed at scholars and students of politics and law who are interested in the prerequisites and conditions for further democratization in states undergoing political transformation.

Environmental Constitutionalism in the Anthropocene
Environmental Constitutionalism in the Anthropocene

Author: Domenico Amirante

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-04-03

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1000567427

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This book examines the relationship between man and nature through different cultural approaches to encourage new environmental legislation as a means of fostering acceptance at a local level. In 2019, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) recognised that we have entered a new era, the Anthropocene, specifically characterised by the impact of one species, mankind, on environmental change. The Anthropocene is penetrating the discourse of both hard sciences and humanities and social sciences, by posing new epistemological as well as practical challenges to many disciplines. Legal sciences have so far been at the margins of this intellectual renewal, with few contributions on the central role that the notion of Anthropocene could play in forging a more effective and just environmental law. By applying a multidisciplinary approach and adopting a Law as Culture paradigm to the study of law, this book explores new paths of investigation and possible solutions to be applied. New perspectives for the constitutional framing of environmental policies, rights, and alternative methods for bottom-up participatory law-making and conflict resolution are investigated, showing that environmental justice is not just an option, but an objective within reach. The book will be essential reading for students, academics, and policymakers in the areas of law, environmental studies and anthropology.

The Legal Foundations of Inequality
The Legal Foundations of Inequality

Author: Roberto Gargarella

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1139485989

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The long revolutionary movements that gave birth to constitutional democracies in the Americas were founded on egalitarian constitutional ideals. They claimed that all men were created equal with similar capacities and also that the community should become self-governing. Following the first constitutional debates that took place in the region, these promising egalitarian claims, which gave legitimacy to the revolutions, soon fell out of favor. Advocates of a conservative order challenged both ideals and favored constitutions that established religion and created an exclusionary political structure. Liberals proposed constitutions that protected individual autonomy and rights but established severe restrictions on the principle of majority rule. Radicals favored an openly majoritarian constitutional organization that, according to many, directly threatened the protection of individual rights. This book examines the influence of these opposite views during the 'founding period' of constitutionalism in countries including the United States, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.