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This thorough discussion of the idea of "democracies without citizenship" in Latin America considers overcoming political violence and discrimination and analyzes various avenues to institutional judicial reform. The (Un)Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America, as the fourth part of Project Latin America 2000 from the Helen Kellogg Institute, enlarges the understanding of significant political, economic, and social issues facing Latin America at the threshold of a new century. The contributors develop arguments around the Latin American system of law which only punishes the poor and marginalized. In addressing lawless violence, the contributors argue that it is no longer the democratic state that directly commits the abuses. Instead, it fails to control arbitrary practices of its own agents and to challenge those who flaunt disregard for the law. The collection demonstrates that it is impossible to separate judicial reform from human rights and argues that justice must be made accessible to the poor and that governments make a serious and comprehensive commitment to social reform.
“The essays collected in Mendez et al. About the “(un)rule of law” and the underprivileged in Latin America make sober reading. But while the specific problems they address about access to justice, racial and gender discrimination, discrimination against indigenous peoples, the role of the police, reform of the judiciary, pockets where the violence of the street rules rather than the law, are writ large in Latin America, they are-at the least-writ small in North America.” —International Journal of Constitutional Law
Juan E. Mendez is Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.
The late Guillermo O’Donnell was the Helen Kellogg Professor of Government and International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro is Professor at the University of Sao Paulo and Director of the University’s Center for the Study of Violence.