Shifting Legal Visions

Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America

Häftad, Engelska, 2017

Av Ezequiel A. González-Ocantos, Ezequiel A. González-Ocantos, Ezequiel A. (University of Oxford) Gonzalez-Ocantos

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What explains the success of criminal prosecutions against former Latin American officials accused of human rights violations? Why did some judiciaries evolve from unresponsive bureaucracies into protectors of victim rights? Using a theory of judicial action inspired by sociological institutionalism, this book argues that this was the result of deep transformations in the legal preferences of judges and prosecutors. Judicial actors discarded long-standing positivist legal criteria, historically protective of conservative interests, and embraced doctrines grounded in international human rights law, which made possible innovative readings of constitutions and criminal codes. Litigants were responsible for this shift in legal visions by activating informal mechanisms of ideational change and providing the skills necessary to deal with complex and unusual cases. Through an in-depth exploration of the interactions between judges, prosecutors and human rights lawyers in three countries, the book asks how changing ideas about the law and standards of adjudication condition the exercise of judicial power.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2017-11-23
Mått152 x 230 x 18 mm
Vikt500 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieCambridge Studies in Law and Society
Antal sidor342
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781316508800

Tillhör följande kategorier

Folkrätt inom Juridik
Politiskt förtryck inom Samhalle och politik

Ezequiel A. González-Ocantos is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, and Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College, at the University of Oxford. He received his B.A. in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2005, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2012. González-Ocantos won the American Political Science Association's Edward S. Corwin Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public law. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and The International Journal of Human Rights.

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.

'Shifting Legal Visions is a fascinating analysis of how Latin American judges came to hold dictatorial torturers and murderers accountable after years of shielding them from justice. The driving force behind this profound conversion, Ezequiel A. González-Ocantos demonstrates in this carefully designed and richly researched account, was the persistent, strategic effort of human-rights NGO's to teach judges new ways of thinking and ruling. This transformative, path-breaking book will be a must-read for scholars and human-rights organizers alike.' Charles Epp, University of Kansas