Book Chapter by Elin Skaar (2018)  in Gerd Oberleitner (ed.) International Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals and Courts. International Human Rights Singapore: Springer.  Truth commissions are an integral component of transitional justice, that is, formal and informal mechanisms set up by the state or civil society to address human rights violations committed in the past. This chapter examines […]

Release date: September 29th, 2017 When can the Executive manipulate the composition of a Court? What political factors explain judicial instability on the bench? Using original field data from Argentina’s National Supreme Court and all twenty-four Provincial Supreme Courts, Andrea Castagnola develops a novel theory to explain forced retirements of judges. She argues that in developing […]

Andrea Castagnola, Steering Committee Member and Coordinator of Judicial Independence Unit, have together with Saul Lopez Noriega edited the book “Judicial Politics in Mexico. The Supreme Court and the Transition to Democracy” (Routledge). After more than seventy years of uninterrupted authoritarian government headed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico formally began the transition to […]

This is the first book to comprehensively and systematically trace the trajectory from impunity towards accountability for past human rights violations in the Latin American region. Based on rich historical analysis, the international team of authors track, across time, the accountability achievements and challenges of nine countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, […]

This book examines the effects of transitional justice on the development of peace and democracy. Anticipated contributions of transitional justice mechanisms are commonly stated in universal terms, with little regard for historically specific contexts. Yet a truth commission, for example, will not have the same function in a society torn by long-term civil war or genocide […]