Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America

Ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change in Latin America. The consolidation of democracy as the predominant form of government and the proliferation of transnational legal instruments have ushered in an era of new legal conceptions and practices. Law has become a core focus of political movements and policy-making. This volume explores the changing legal ideas and practices that accompany, cause, and are a consequence of the judicialization of politics in Latin America. It is the product of a three-year international research effort, sponsored by the Law and Society Association, the Latin American Studies Association, and the Ford Foundation, that gathered leading and emerging scholars of Latin American courts from across disciplines and across continents.

Javier A. Couso is a Professor of Law at Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile. In 2006-7, Couso was the Tinker Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work focuses on the study of Chilean and Latin American constitutional law and processes of judicialization of politics in the region. He has published extensively on such matters, in journals such as Democratization, Verfassung und Recht in bersee (VR), Griffith Law Review, and the Revista de Ciencia Poltica. He has also contributed chapters to a number of edited volumes. Alexandra Huneeus is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is also a faculty member of the Legal Studies Program. Huneeus has been a postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University; a Visiting Scholar at Universidad Diego Portales, Chile; and a Fellow of the International Human Rights Clinic at the Berkeley Law School. Her research focuses on judicial politics and human rights in Latin America. Rachel Sieder is Research Professor at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologa Social (CIESAS); Mexico City. She is also Affiliated Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, University of Bergen, Norway. She was previously a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, where she remains a research Fellow. She has published widely on indigenous rights, human rights, and sociolegal studies, with a particular geographical focus on Guatemala.