Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T13:55:51.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Working in New Political Spaces

The Checkered History of Latin American Judicialization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2022

By
Sandra Botero ,
Daniel Brinks  and
Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos
Edited by
Sandra Botero ,
Daniel M. Brinks  and
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Sandra Botero
Affiliation:
Universidad del Rosario, Colombia
Daniel M. Brinks
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

The Introduction outlines the trajectory of the literature on judicialization in Latin America, and presents the core argument of the book. The book argues that the institutional and cultural changes that empowered courts and put them at the center of policy disputes, what the editors call the “judicialization superstructure,” often fall short of the promise of greater accountability and rights protection. First, courts sometimes fail to account for persistent state weakness, pushing policies ahead of the state and societal infrastructure needed to support them. Second, judicial corruption, nepotism, and other intra-institutional pathologies occasionally diminish the transformative potential of courts and prosecutors. Third, courts’ and activists’ inability to root change in robust structures of support leads to political and societal backlash that frustrates reform efforts. As a result, and in spite of some notable successes, judicialization in certain areas produces limited impact and is met with aggressive responses from conservative forces. Finally, there are instances when the expectations of the architects of judicialization have been met all too well, especially in terms of strengthening mechanisms of horizontal accountability, but due to the broader context in which these mechanisms operate, effective judicialization can do more harm than good.

Keywords

JudicializationRights protectionAccountabilityBacklashLatin America
Type
Chapter
Information
The Limits of Judicialization
From Progress to Backlash in Latin America
 , pp. 1 - 38
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adebanwi, W., and Obadare, E. (2011) When Corruption Fights Back: Democracy and Elite Interest in Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption War. Journal of Modern African Studies 49(2), 185–213.Google Scholar
Albarracín, M. (2011) Corte Constitucional y movimientos sociales: el reconocimiento judicial de los derechos de las parejas del mismo sexo en Colombia. Sur: International Journal on Human Rights 8(14), 7–33.Google Scholar
Antía, F., and Vairo, D. (2019) Política y Justicia en Uruguay: el poder de la Suprema Corte de Justicia (1990–2018). Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 28(2), 61–86.Google Scholar
Baxi, U. (1985) Taking Suffering Seriously: Social Action Litigation in the Supreme Court of India. In Ramaswamy, S. and Dhavan, S. K., eds., The Judicial Power. Delhi: Tripathi, Sweet-Maxwell.Google Scholar
Bilchitz, D. (2013) Constitutionalism, the Global South, and Economic Justice. In Bonilla-Maldonado, D, ed., Constitutionalism of the Global South: The Activist Tribunals of India, South Africa, and Colombia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bonilla-Maldonado, D., ed. (2013) Constitutionalism of the Global South: The Activist Tribunals of India, South Africa and Colombia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Botero, S. (2017) Agents of Neoliberalism? High Courts, Legal Preferences and Rights in Latin America. In Falletti, T. and Parrado, E., eds., Latin America since the Left Turn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Botero, S. (2018) Judicial Impact and Court Promoted Monitoring in Argentina. Comparative Politics 50(2), 169–87.Google Scholar
Braconnier De León, A. I. (2021) Disputing Extractivism at the Court: Elite Countermobilization and Backlash in a (Still) Colonial Guatemala. PhD Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Brinks, D. M. (2012) The Transformation of the Latin American State-as-Law: State Capacity and the Rule of Law. Revista de Ciencia Política 32, 561–83.Google Scholar
Brinks, D. M., and Blass, A. (2017) Rethinking Judicial Empowerment: The New Foundations of Constitutional Justice. International Journal of Constitutional Law 15(2), 296–331.Google Scholar
Brinks, D. M., and Blass, A. (2018) The DNA of Constitutional Justice in Latin America: Politics, Governance and Judicial Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, D. M., and Botero, S. (2014) Inequality and the Rule of Law: Ineffective Rights in Latin American Democracies. In Brinks, D. M., Leiras, M., and Mainwaring, S., eds., Reflections on Uneven Democracies: The Legacy of Guillermo O’Donnell. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, D. M., and Forbath, W. (2014) The Role of Courts and Constitutions in the New Politics of Welfare in Latin America. In Peerenboom, R. and Ginsburg, T., eds., Law and Development of Middle-Income Countries: Avoiding the Middle-Income Trap. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brinks, D. M., Gauri, V., and Shen, K. (2015) Social Rights Constitutionalism: Negotiating the Tension between the Universal and the Particular. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 11, 289–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, D. M, Levitsky, S., and Murillo, M. V. (2019) Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, D. M, Levitsky, S., and Murillo, M. V., eds. (2020) The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinks, D. M., and Sandoval Rojas, N. (2019) Entrenching Social Constitutionalism? Contributions and Challenges of the Left in Latin American Constitutionalism. In Balan, M. and Montambeault, F., eds., Legacies of the Left Turn in Latin America: The Promise of Inclusive Citizenship. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, T. L., and Chaudoin, S. (2013). Ratification Patterns and the International Criminal Court. International Studies Quarterly 57(2), 400–09.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cano Blandón, L. F. (2017) Constitucionalismo Experimental y Protección Judicial del Derecho al Agua en Colombia. PhD Dissertation, Universidad de Los Andes.Google Scholar
Contesse, J. (2018) The International Authority of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: A Critique of the Conventionality Control Doctrine. International Journal of Human Rights 22(9), 1168–91.Google Scholar
Couso, J., Huneeus, A., and Sieder, R., eds. (2010) Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Porta, D., and Vannucci, A. (2007). Corruption and Anti-Corruption: The Political Defeat of “Clean Hands” in Italy. West European Politics 30(4), 830–53.Google Scholar
Dembowski, H. (2001) Taking the State to Court: Public Interest Litigation and the Public Sphere in Metropolitan India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Díez, J. (2015) The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Domingo, D. (1999) Judicial Independence and Judicial Reform in Latin America. In Schedler, A., Diamond, L., and Plattner, M., eds., The Self Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies. London: Lynne Reinner.Google Scholar
Domingo, P. (2000) Judicial Independence: The Politics of the Supreme Court in Mexico. Journal of Latin American Studies 32(3), 705–35.Google Scholar
Domingo, P., and Sieder, R., eds. (2001) Rule of Law in Latin America: The International Promotion of Judicial Reform. London: Institute of Latin American Studies.Google Scholar
Dotan, Y. (2015) The Boundaries of Social Transformation through Litigation: Women’s and LGBT Rights in Israel, 1970–2010. Israel Law Review 48, 3–38.Google Scholar
Drèze, J. (2004) Democracy and the Right to Food. Economic and Political Weekly, April 24, 2004, 1723–31.Google Scholar
Dulitzky, A. (2015) An Inter-American Constitutional Court? The Invention of the Conventionality Control by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Texas International Law Journal 50, 45–93.Google Scholar
Dzmitryieva, A. (2021) 2021. Becoming a Judge in Russia: An Analysis of Judicial Biographies. Europe–Asia Studies 73(1), 131–56.Google Scholar
Engstrom, P., ed. (2019) The Inter-American Human Rights System: Impact Beyond Compliance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Epp, C. (2009) Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Finkel, J. (2008) Judicial Reform as Political Insurance. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Gauri, V. (2014) Fundamental Rights and Public Interest Litigation in India. In Suresh, M. and Narrain, S., eds., The Shifting Scales of Justice: The Supreme Court in Neo-Liberal India. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.Google Scholar
Gauri, V., and Brinks, D. M. (2008) Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gathii, J. (2019) Recharacterizing Corruption to Encompass Illicit Financial Flows. AJIL Unbound 113, 336–40.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E. (2016) Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E. (2018) Communicative Entrepreneurs: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Dialogue with National Judges. International Studies Quarterly 62(4), 737–50.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E. (2019) Courts in Latin America. In Prevost, G. and Vanden, H., eds., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E., and Baraybar, V. (2019) Lava Jato beyond Borders: The Uneven Performance of Anti-Corruption Judicial Efforts in Latin America. Taiwan Journal of Democracy 15(1), 63–89.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E., and Sandholtz, W. (2021) Constructing a Regional Human Rights Legal Order: The Inter-American Court, National Courts, and Judicial Dialogue, 1988–2014. International Journal of Constitutional Law 9(5), 1559–96.Google Scholar
Hammergren, L. (1998) The Politics of Justice and Justice Reform in Latin America: The Peruvian Case in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Hammergren, L. (2002) Fifteen Years of Justice and Justice Reform in Latin America: Where We Are and Why We Haven’t Made More Progress. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Helmke, G., and Ríos Figueroa, J., eds. (2011) Courts in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herrero, A. (2011) La incidencia de La Corte Suprema de Justicia en la formulación de políticas públicas: Una exploración empírica del caso argentino. Revista Política 49(1), 71–106.Google Scholar
Huneeus, A. (2016) Constitutional Lawyers and the Inter-American Court’s Varied Authority. Law and Contemporary Problems 79, 179–207.Google Scholar
Huneeus, A., and Madsen, M. (2019) Between Universalism and Regional Law and Politics: A Comparative History of the American, European, and African Human Rights Systems. International Journal of Constitutional Law 16(1), 136–60.Google Scholar
Ingram, I. (2015) Crafting Courts in New Democracies: The Politics of Subnational Judicial Reform in Brazil and Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingram, M., and Kapiszewski, D., eds. (2019) Beyond High Courts: The Justice Complex in Latin America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, D. (2012) High Courts and Economic Governance in Argentina and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, D., Silverstein, G., and Kagan, R., eds. (2013) Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, D., and Taylor, M. (2008) Doing Courts Justice? Studying Judicial Politics in Latin America. Perspectives on Politics 6(4), 741–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, T. (2009) Beyond Backlash: Assessing the Impact of Judicial Decisions on LGBT Rights. Law & Society Review 43(1), 151–86.Google Scholar
Klarman, M. (1994) Brown, Racial Change, and the Civil Rights Movement. Virginia Law Review 80(1), 7–150.Google Scholar
Klarman, M. (2006) From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuo, M. S., and Chen, H. W. (2018) The Brown Moment in Taiwan: Making Sense of the Law and Politics of the Taiwanese Same-Sex Marriage Case in a Comparative Light. Columbia Journal of Asian Law 31, 1–81.Google Scholar
Langer, M. (2004) From Legal Transplants to Legal Translations: The Globalization of Plea Bargaining and the Americanization Thesis in Criminal Procedure. Harvard International Law Journal 45(1), 1–64.Google Scholar
Langer, M. (2007) Revolution in Latin American Criminal Procedure: Diffusion of Legal Ideas from the Periphery. American Journal of Comparative Law 55(4), 617–76.Google Scholar
Langford, M. (2014) Housing Rights Litigation: Grootboom and Beyond. In Langford, M., Cousins, B., Dugard, J., and Madlingozi, T., eds., Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa: Symbols or Substance? New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Langford, M., Cousins, B., Dugard, J., and Madlingozi, T. (2011) Symbols or Substance? The Role and Impact of Socio-Economic Rights Strategies in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Langford, M., Cousins, B., Dugard, J., and Madlingozi, T., eds. (2014) Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa: Symbols or Substance? New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Langford, M., Rodríguez Garavito, C., and Rossi, J., eds. (2017) Social Rights Judgments and the Politics of Compliance: Making It Stick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, H. Courts, the Law, and LGBT Rights in Asia. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. May 29, 2020; accessed Oct. 29, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1230Google Scholar
Lehoucq, E. (2021) Legal Threats and the Emergence of Legal Mobilization: Conservative Mobilization in Colombia. Law & Social Inquiry 46(2), 299–330.Google Scholar
Magaloni, B. (2003) Authoritarianism, Democracy and the Supreme Court: Horizontal Exchange and the Rule of Law in Mexico. In Mainwaring, S. and Welna, C., eds., Democratic Accountability in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, S., and Welna, C., eds. (2003) Democratic Accountability in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Merlinsky, M. G. (2009) Atravesando el rio: la construcción social y política de la cuestión ambiental en Argentina. PhD Dissertation, Universidad de Buenos Aires/Paris 8.Google Scholar
Michel, V. (2018) Prosecutorial Accountability and Victims’ Rights in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunes, R. (2010) Ideational Origins of Progressive Judicial Activism: The Colombian Constitutional Court and the Right to Health. Latin American Politics and Society 52(3), 67–97.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, G. (1999) Horizontal Accountability and New Polyarchies. In Schedler, A., Diamond, L., and Plattner, M., eds., The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies. London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Pasqualucci, J. (2013) The Practice and Procedure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peñas Defago, M. A., and Morán Faúndes, J. (2014) Conservative Litigation against Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies in Argentina. Reproductive Health Matters 22(44), 82–90.Google Scholar
Popova, M., and Post, V. (2018) Prosecuting High-Level Corruption in Eastern Europe. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 5(3), 231–44.Google Scholar
Ríos-Figueroa, J. (2007) Fragmentation of Power and the Emergence of an Effective Judiciary in Mexico, 1994–2002. Latin American Politics and Society 49(1), 31–57.Google Scholar
Ríos-Figueroa, J. (2011) Institutions of Constitutional Justice in Latin America. In Helmke, G. and Ríos-Figueroa, J., eds., Courts in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ríos-Figueroa, J. (2016) Constitutional Courts as Mediators: Armed Conflict, Civil–Military Relations, and the Rule of Law in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roa Roa, J. (2019) Justicia constitucional, deliberación y democracia en Colombia: Jeremy Waldron reflexivo en Bogotá. Revista Derecho del Estado 44, 57–98.Google Scholar
Rodriguez Raga, J. C. (2011) Strategic Deference in the Colombian Constitutional Court, 1992–2006. In Helmke, G. and Ríos-Figueroa, J., eds., Courts in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Garavito, C. (2010) Toward a Sociology of the Global Rule of Law Field: Neoliberalism, Neoconstitutionalism, and the Contest over Judicial Reform in Latin America. In Garth, B. and Dezalay, Y., eds., Lawyers and the Rule of Law in an Era of Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Garavito, C. (2011) Latin American Constitutionalism: Social and Economic Rights: Beyond the Courtroom: The Impact of Judicial Activism on Socioeconomic Rights in Latin America. Texas Law Review 89: 1669–98.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Garavito, C., and Rodríguez-Franco, D. (2015) Radical Deprivation on Trial: The Impact of Judicial Activism on Socioeconomic Rights in the Global South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, G. (1991) The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ruibal, A. (2014) Movement and Counter-Movement: A History of Abortion Law Reform and the Backlash in Colombia 2006–2014. Reproductive Health Matters 22(44), 42–51.Google Scholar
Sandoval Rojas, N. (2013) La movilización social en tiempos de la constitución: feministas, indígenas y víctimas de crímenes de estado ante la Corte Constitucional colombiana. Colombia Internacional 79, 191–217.Google Scholar
Schedler, A. (1999) Conceptualizing Accountability. In Schedler, A., Diamond, L., and Plattner, M., eds., The Self Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies. London: Lynne Reinner.Google Scholar
Shen-Bayh, F. (2018) Strategies of Repression. World Politics 70(3), 321–57.Google Scholar
Sieder, R., Schjolden, L., and Angell, A., eds. (2005) The Judicialization of Politics in Latin America. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sigal, M., Rossi, J., and Morales, D. (2017) Argentina: Implementation of Collective Cases. In Langford, M., Rodríguez Garavito, C., and Rossi, J., eds., Social Rights Judgments and the Politics of Compliance: Making It Stick, 140–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stroh, A. (2018) Sustaining and Jeopardising a Credible Arbiter: Judicial Networks in Benin’s Consolidating Democracy. International Political Science Review 39(5), 600–15.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. (2018) Getting to Accountability: A Framework for Planning and Implementing Anti-Corruption Strategies. Daedalus 147(3), 63–82.Google Scholar
Trochev, A. (2018) Patronal Politics, Judicial Networks and Collective Judicial Autonomy in Post-Soviet Ukraine. International Political Science Review 39(5), 662–78.Google Scholar
Uprimny, D., and Durán, J. (2014) Equidad y Protección Judicial del Derecho a La Salud en Colombia. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL/Naciones Unidas.Google Scholar
Voeten, E. (2020) Populism and Backlashes against International Courts. Perspectives on Politics 18(2), 407–22.Google Scholar
Von Bogdandy, A. (2015) Ius Constitutionale Commune in Latin America: Observations on Transformative Constitutionalism. AJIL Unbound 109, 109–14.Google Scholar
Waldron, J. (2006) The Core Case against Judicial Review. Yale Law Journal 115(6), 1346–406.Google Scholar
White, L., and Perelman, J. (2011) Stones of Hope: How African Activists Reclaim Human Rights to Challenge Global Poverty. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. (2009) Rights Revolutions in Unlikely Places: Colombia and Costa Rica. Journal of Politics in Latin America 1(2), 59–85.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. (2011) Litigating Health Rights in Costa Rica. In Yamin, A. E. and Gloppen, S., eds., Health Rights in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Yashar, D. (2018) Homicidal Ecologies: Illicit Economies and Complicit States in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×