Can water rights bring water to the poor?

Time: 11:00-12:00 This session marks the launch of a new LawTransform research unit on “Natural Resources & Climate Lawfare”. Water is a vital, valuable and highly contested natural resource. In 2010 a UN resolution recognized the independent human right to water and sanitation. Has this new international Human Right strengthened marginalized peoples struggle to access […]

Land, Law & Inequality

Time: 09:50-10:50 Land remains a main source of livelihood and wealth – and of social conflict and inequality. This is exacerbated as population pressures, development needs and climate change increase the competition for scarce resources, often threatening already marginalized groups depending on the land. Property rights to land and natural resources have been fiercely contested […]

Constitutional Courts & Democracy: Latin America & beyond

Time: 14:30 – 15:30 Both in Latin America and Eastern Europe ambitious constitutional justice systems were established as part of the transitions from authoritarian rule in these regions in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of these constitutional courts assumed roles exceeding their historical functions – and those of constitutional courts in advanced industrial democracies. A new […]

Roundtable: Researching Drivers of Violence

Mexico is one of the world’s most violent countries, but the violence is not evenly distributed across the territory (as is also the case in many other countries) the reasons for this is not well understood. In a large research project Karina Ansolabehere and her colleague are investigating the patterns of violence in different Mexican […]

Law & Society in Latin America: taking stock & looking ahead (EADI panel)

The seminar features editors and authors of three new books discussing the social dynamics of law in the Latin-American region and beyond:
·         Handbook on Law and Society in Latin America, edited by Rachel Sieder, Karina Ansolabehere & Tatiana Alfonso (Routledge 2017, forthcoming)
·         Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America, edited by Rachel Sieder (Rutger 2017)
·         Social Rights Judgments and the Politics of Compliance – Making It Stick edited by Malcolm Langford et al. (Cambridge University Press 2017)

Roundtable: Transitional Justice in Latin America – Book Launch

This new book – co-authored and co-edited by Elin Skaar, Jemima García-Godos, and Cath Collins, addresses current developments in transitional justice in Latin America – effectively the first region to undergo concentrated transitional justice experiences in modern times. Using a comparative approach, the book examines trajectories in truth, justice, reparations, and amnesties in nine countries […]

EADI panel: Gender and Transitional Justice: How are gendered crimes and injustices dealt with in transitional justice processes?

Transitional justice mechanisms have become the norm in post-conflict & post-authoritarian settings. Whereas processes to address past gross human rights violations were largely nationally driven in the 1980s and early 1990s, international involvement has become increasingly common and the processes have evolved in several respects: International law has gained importance for how transitional justice measures […]

Roundtable: ‘Beyond Words’ project on truth commission recommendations

The transformative potential of truth commissions (TCs) arguably lies most directly in the body of recommendations put forward in the report. TC recommendations usually include reforms in the legal, political and social fields, and reparations of various kinds. The list is often extensive. The tendency over time has been towards longer list of recommendations. This […]