This book examines the reasoning practice of 15 constitutional courts and supreme courts, including the Caribbean Commonwealth and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Enriched by empirical data, with which it strives to contribute to a constructive and well-informed debate, the volume analyses how Latin American courts justify their decisions. Based on original data and a region-specific methodology, the book provides a systematic analysis utilising more than 600 leading cases. It shows which interpretive methods and concepts are most favoured by Latin American courts, and which courts were the most prolific in their reasoning activities. The volume traces the features of judicial dialogue on a regional and sub-regional level and enables the evaluation and comparison of each country's reasoning culture in different epochs. The collection includes several graphs to visualise the changes and tendencies of the reasoning practices throughout time in the region, based on information gathered from the dataset. To better understand the current functioning and the future tendencies of courts in Latin America and the Caribbean, the volume illuminates how constitutional and supreme courts have actually been making their decisions in the selected landmark cases, which could also contribute to future successful litigation strategies for both national constitutional courts and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. This project was made possible due to the collaboration and funding provided by the Rule of Law Programme for Latin America of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Law School of the University of San Francisco de Quito.

This book examines the reasoning practice of 15 constitutional courts and supreme courts, including the Caribbean Commonwealth and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Enriched by empirical data, with which it strives to contribute to a constructive and well-informed debate, the volume analyses how Latin American courts justify their decisions. Based on original data and a region-specific methodology, the book provides a systematic analysis utilising more than 600 leading cases. It shows which interpretive methods and concepts are most favoured by Latin American courts, and which courts were the most prolific in their reasoning activities. The volume traces the features of judicial dialogue on a regional and sub-regional level and enables the evaluation and comparison of each country's reasoning culture in different epochs. The collection includes several graphs to visualise the changes and tendencies of the reasoning practices throughout time in the region, based on information gathered from the dataset. To better understand the current functioning and the future tendencies of courts in Latin America and the Caribbean, the volume illuminates how constitutional and supreme courts have actually been making their decisions in the selected landmark cases, which could also contribute to future successful litigation strategies for both national constitutional courts and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. This project was made possible due to the collaboration and funding provided by the Rule of Law Programme for Latin America of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Law School of the University of San Francisco de Quito.

This book provides unique insights into the practice of democratic constitutionalism in one of the world’s most legally and politically significant regions. It combines contributions from leading Latin American and global scholars to provide ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ insights about the lessons to be drawn from the distinctive constitutional experiences of countries in Latin America. In doing so, it also draws on a rich array of legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, it shows both the promise of democratic constitutions as a vehicle for social, economic and political change, and the variation in the actual constitutional experiences of different countries on the ground – or the limits to constitutions as a locus for broader social change.

This ground-breaking collection of essays outlines and explains the unique development of Latin American jurisprudence. It introduces the idea of the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL), an original Latin American path of transformative constitutionalism, to an Anglophone audience for the first time. It charts the key developments that have transformed the region and assesses the success of the constitutional projects that followed a period of authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Coined by scholars who have been documenting, conceptualizing, and comparing the development of Latin American public law for more than a decade, the term ICCAL encompasses themes that cross national borders and legal fields, taking in constitutional law, administrative law, general public international law, regional integration law, human rights, and investment law. Not only does this volume map the legal landscape, it also suggests measures to improve society via due legal process and a rights-based, supranational and regionally rooted constitutionalism. The editors contend that with the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, common problems such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population from having a say in government, as well as corruption, hyper-presidentialism, and the weak normativity of the law can be combatted more effectively in future.

Over the past 30 years, Latin America has lived through an intense period of constitutional change. Some reforms have been limited in their design and impact, while others have been far-reaching transformations to basic structural features and fundamental rights. Scholars interested in the law and politics of constitutional change in Latin America are turning increasingly to comparative methodologies to expose the nature and scope of these changes, to uncover the motivations of political actors, to theorise how better to execute the procedures of constitutional reform, and to assess whether there should be any limitations on the power of constitutional amendment. In this collection, leading and emerging voices in Latin American constitutionalism explore the complexity of the vast topography of constitutional developments, experiments and perspectives in the region. This volume offers a deep understanding of modern constitutional change in Latin America and evaluates its implications for constitutionalism, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Foreword .-- Introduction .-- Part 1. Social policy institutions. -- Chapter I. Institutional framework for social development / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Chapter II. Social development and social protection institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean: overview and challenges / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Part 2. Components and institutional framewoek of social protection. -- Chapter III. Labour market regulation and social protection: institutional challenges / Mario D. Velásquez Pinto .-- Chapter IV. Institutional aspects of Latin America's pension systems / Andras Uthoff .-- Chapter V. Care as a pillar of social protection: rights, policies and institutions in Latin America / María Nieves Rico, Claudia Robles .-- Part 3. Policies for specific populations and their institutional framework .-- Chapter VI. Life cycle and social policies: youth institutions in the region / Daniela Trucco .-- Chapter VII. Disability and public policy: institutional progress and challenges in Latin America / Heidi Ullmann .-- Chapter VIII. Latin American Afrodescendants: institutional framework and public policies / Marta Rangel.