Latin & South America

Rocío Quintero, Timothy Fish Hodgson and Young Park work at the International Commission of Jurists. This symposium consists of a series of posts authored by the different panelists of a webinar hosted by the International Commission of Jurists titled “COVID-19 and Courts: A Global Trend of Judicial Deference?“ On 11 May 2021, the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca in Colombia ordered  the Colombian Government to...

[Javier S Eskauriatza is a Lecturer at Birmingham Law School.] Introduction In October 2020, it was a surprise when the U.S. arrested the former Mexican Defence Secretary, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, on drug-trafficking and corruption charges, at an airport in Los Angeles, California. The indictment accused Cienfuegos of participating in an international conspiracy to manufacture heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, to import and distribute them in the...

Despite the publication of the MMIWG Report and its findings of an ongoing “race-based genocide” against Canada’s First Nations, issues of indigenous genocide and (neo)colonial oppression have remained side-lined from political discourse in the rest of the American continent. In fact, the situation has arguably worsened: at the same time as Canada protested the unmarked graves of hundreds of indigenous...

[Carlos Rafael Urquilla Bonilla is a Senior Attorney at Inter-American Institute of Social Responsibility and Human Rights (IIRESODH)] In August 1936, husband and wife Antonio Alomar Mas and Margalida Jaume Vandrel were forcibly disappeared in Manacor (Mallorca) leaving two daughters behind at ages 8 and 11 amidst the Civil War. Their case is a paradigmatic example of the multiple gross human rights violations committed during the Spanish Civil...

While results have not yet been officially announced, it is now a fact that Pedro Castillo, a rural farmer and schoolteacher from the town of Chota, in the northern Peruvian Andes, won Peru’s Presidential Election. Let me say this from the get-go: this is a historical moment. Peru is an immensely centralised, deeply racist country. Castillo’s meteoric rise to the...

[Alejandro Chehtman is a Professor of Law at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina) and Fellow at the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET).] In Lawmaking under pressure Giovanni Mantilla has written an indispensable book for anyone interested in, or working on the laws of armed conflict, international legal history, and the theory of international relations (IR). The book uncovers and critically examines the process through which...

[Dr. Mariela Morales Antoniazzi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law where she coordinates the Ius Constitutionale Commune in América Latina (ICCAL) project. Silvia Steininger is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] On March 15, in an extraordinary act of resistance to...

[Moisés Montiel is a lawyer advising individuals, companies, and States on matters of international law, human rights, and other international areas at Lotus Soluciones Legales. @moisesmontielm] Alex Saab, a Colombian national and businessman, decided to throw his lot in with the Maduro administration in Venezuela and is currently awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court of Cabo Verde on whether...

Few international economic lawyers doubt the value of foreign direct investment (FDI). There is even some consensus that FDI plays a vital role in fostering development in host states. It triggers technology expansion, assists human capital formation, and nurtures a dynamic business environment. States—especially across the Third World—appeal to investors in the hopes of attracting a share of the green gold. Although there is truth to...

Alessandro Rollo is an associate at Omnia Strategy in London specialising in public international law, international dispute resolution, and human rights. Photo Credit:  Maik Kleinert Introduction The Escazú Agreement is the first treaty addressing access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hailed as a long-awaited breakthrough in the region’s environmental governance, the treaty provides...

Simón Gómez is adjunct professor of Public International Law at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas and works as International Litigation Coordinator at the NGO Defiende Venezuela. Moisés Montiel is a consultant and litigant in matters of International Law and Human Rights at Lotus Soluciones Legales as well as a Professor of Treaty Law and Law of Armed Conflict at...

[Hayley Evans (@HayleyNEvans) is a 2019 J.D. graduate of Harvard Law School and an incoming Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law. Priscyll Anctil Avoine (@Cyppp_) is a PhD candidate in Political Science and Feminist Studies at Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and the director of Fundación Lüvo, a feminist and antiracist collective.] In Colombia, the COVID-19 crisis has seriously complicated an already tense humanitarian setting. As of...