Workshop on The Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America: A Rapporteurs' Report

Introduction

The Kellogg Institute hosted an academic workshop on "The Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America" from 9-11 November 1996. This was the fourth annual workshop in the series "Project Latin America 2000," supported by The Coca-Cola Company. The workshop gathered scholars, policymakers, business and labor leaders, NGO representatives, and journalists from the Americas, Europe, and Africa, to evaluate the present state of the Latin American legal system. Guillermo O'Donnell (Academic Director of the Kellogg Institute), Juan Méndez (Director of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica), and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo, Brazil) organized these events. This report summarizes the academic workshop, including each of the papers presented, the discussants' remarks, and the issues debated.

Program for the November 9-10, 1996
Workshop on The Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America

Session I. Problems of Lawless Violence

  Chair: Tom Farer,The University of Denver

1. Torture and Conditions of Detention in Latin America
   Paper: Nigel Rodley, University of Essex, England
   Discussant: Ligia Bolívar, PROVEA, Venezuela

2. Defining the Role of the Police
   Paper: Paul Chevigny, New York University Law School
   Discussant: Jean-Paul Brodeur, University of Montreal

3. Rural Conflicts: Amazonia Rite of Passage from Massacre to Genocide
   Paper: Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida, Social Anthropologist, Brazil
   Discussant: Roger Plant, UN Mission to Guatemala

Session II. Overcoming Discrimination

  Chair: Rebecca Cook, University of Toronto

1. Indigenous Peoples and the Rule of Law In Latin America: Do They Have a Chance?
   Paper: Jorge Dandler, International Labor Organization, Lima, Peru
   Discussant: Shelton H. Davis, World Bank

2. Overcoming the Discrimination of Women in Mexico: A Task for Sisyphus
   Paper: Mariclaire Acosta, Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos
   Discussant: Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women's Rights Project, Human Rights Watch

3. Color and the Rule of Law
   Paper: Peter Fry, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
   Discussant: Joan Dassin, Inter-American Dialogue

Session III. Institutional Reform, Including Access to Justice

  Chair: Juan Méndez, Inter-American Institute of Human Rights

1. International Aspects of Current Efforts at Judicial Reform: Undermining Justice in Haiti
   Paper: Reed Brody, Esq., USA
   Discussant: Leonardo Franco, UNHCR; Former Director, UN Mission to Guatemala

2. Judicial Reforms in Latin America: Good News for the Underprivileged?
   Paper: Jorge Correa, Law School, Diego Portales University, Chile
   Discussant: Leopoldo Schiffrin, Federal Court of Appeals, Argentina

3. Access to Justice for the Poor In Latin America
   Paper: Alejandro Garro, Columbia University Law School
   Discussant: Sérgio Adorno, University of São Paulo, Brazil

*: Gina Bekker and Robert Patrick obtained Master of Law degrees in international human rights from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1997. Bekker teaches in South Africa; she recently returned there from the Hague, where she served on the international tribunal on crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Patrick is in private practice in South Africa. Back.