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This book documents the corrosive effect of social exclusion on democracy and the rule of law. It shows how marginalization prevents citizens from effectively engaging even the best legal systems, how politics creeps into prosecutorial and judicial decision making, and how institutional change is often nullified by enduring contextual factors. It also shows how some institutional arrangements can overcome these impediments. The argument is based on extensive field work and original data on the investigation and prosecution of more than 500 police homicides in five legal systems in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It includes both qualitative analyses of individual violations and prosecutions and quantitative analyses of broad patterns within and across jurisdictions. The book offers a structured comparison of police, prosecutorial, and judicial institutions in each location, and shows that analyses of any one of these organizations in isolation misses many of the essential dynamics that underlie an effective system of justice.

Police shootings --- Deadly force used by police --- Police use of deadly force --- Shootings by police --- Use of deadly force by police --- Police patrol --- Suicide by cop --- Social Sciences --- Political Science

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In recent times there has been a dramatic change in the nature and scope of constitutional justice systems in the global south. New or reformed constitutions have proliferated, protecting social, economic, and political rights. While constitutional courts in Latin America have traditionally been used as ways to limit power and preserve the status quo, the evidence shows that they are evolving into a functioning part of contemporary politics and a central component of a system of constitutional justice. This book lays bare the political roots of this transformation, outlining a new way to understand judicial design and the very purpose of constitutional justice. Authors Daniel M. Brinks and Abby Blass use case studies drawn from nineteen Latin American countries over forty years to reveal the ideas behind the new systems of constitutional justice. They show how constitutional designers entrust their hopes and fears to dynamic governance systems, in hopes of directing the development of constitutional meaning over time.

Constitutional courts --- Constitutional law --- Political questions and judicial power --- Justice, Administration of --- Judicial process --- Decision making, Judicial --- Judicial behavior --- Judicial decision making --- Judges --- Law --- Procedure (Law) --- Judicial activism --- Judicial power and political questions --- Act of state --- Administrative discretion --- Judicial review --- Jurisdiction --- Rule of law --- Separation of powers --- Courts, Constitutional --- Courts, Supreme --- Supreme courts --- Courts of special jurisdiction --- Courts of last resort --- Psychological aspects --- Interpretation and construction --- Political aspects --- Constitutional courts - Latin America --- Constitutional law - Latin America --- Political questions and judicial power - Latin America --- Judicial process - Latin America --- Justice, Administration of - Latin America

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Optimism about the use of laws, constitutions, and rights to achieve social change has never been higher among practitioners. But the academic literature is skeptical that courts can direct resources toward the poor. This paper develops a nuanced account in which not all courts are the same. Countries and policy areas characterized by judicial decisions with broader applicability tend to avoid the potential anti-poor bias of courts, whereas areas dominated by individual litigation and individualized effects are less likely to have pro-poor outcomes. Using data on social and economic rights cases in five countries, the authors estimate the potential distributive impact of litigation by examining whether the poor are over or under-represented among the beneficiaries of litigation, relative to their share of the population. They find that the impact of courts varies considerably across the cases, but is positive and pro-poor in two of the five countries (India and South Africa), distribution-neutral in two others (Indonesia and Brazil), and sharply anti-poor in Nigeria. Overall, the results of litigation are much more positive for the poor than conventional wisdom would suggest.

Courts --- Education --- Equity --- Gender and Law --- Health --- Health Monitoring & Evaluation --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human rights --- Judicial System Reform --- Labor Policies --- Law and Development --- Population Policies --- Poverty --- Social policy

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This book investigates the impact of the United Nations General Assembly’s 2010 resolution that elevated rights to water and sanitation are stand-alone international human rights. A major goal of creating this new human right was to incentivize governments to prioritize and pursue policies to improve access to affordable, potable water to the more than 750 million people worldwide who lacked access, as well as to provide the more than 2.5 billion people with inadequate sanitation. The book’s chapters use a variety of methodological approaches including qualitative case studies and quantitative studies that draw on data from around the world. The chapters reveal how the global human right to water and sanitation was created, how it has been used in rights struggles around the world, and the extent to which it has improved access to water and sanitation for the world’s most marginalized people.

Humanities --- Social interaction --- Cape Town Day Zero --- water rights --- water scarcity --- water-justice --- water-governance --- inequality --- South Africa --- right to water --- courts --- vulnerable groups --- UN resolutions --- water --- sanitation --- human rights --- human right to water and sanitation --- HRtWS --- natural language processing --- machine learning --- text analysis --- constitutional reform --- legal opportunity structure --- water legal framework --- socioeconomic rights --- Brazil --- Peru --- Colombia --- social movements --- political cost --- advocacy --- activism --- social movement --- socio-economic rights --- United States --- political opportunity --- coalition-building --- collective action --- human rights from below --- human rights to water and sanitation --- water access --- constitutionalisation --- norm diffusion --- opportunity structures --- impact and efficacy of human rights --- human right to water --- drinking water --- irrigation --- marginalised groups --- indigenous communities --- social and economic rights --- human rights critiques --- right to life --- right to environment --- global rights --- evolution of rights --- construction of rights --- Latin America --- South Asia --- Europe --- Africa --- USA

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Analysts and policymakers often decry the failure of institutions to accomplish their stated purpose. Bringing together leading scholars of Latin American politics, this volume helps us understand why. The volume offers a conceptual and theoretical framework for studying weak institutions. It introduces different dimensions of institutional weakness and explores the origins and consequences of that weakness. Drawing on recent research on constitutional and electoral reform, executive-legislative relations, property rights, environmental and labor regulation, indigenous rights, squatters and street vendors, and anti-domestic violence laws in Latin America, the volume's chapters show us that politicians often design institutions that they cannot or do not want to enforce or comply with. Challenging existing theories of institutional design, the volume helps us understand the logic that drives the creation of weak institutions, as well as the conditions under which they may be transformed into institutions that matter.

Political culture --- Government accountability --- Administrative agencies --- Agencies, Administrative --- Executive agencies --- Government agencies --- Regulatory agencies --- Administrative law --- Public administration --- Accountability in government --- Responsibility --- Law and legislation --- Latin America --- Politics and government --- Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre Comercio countries --- Neotropical region --- Neotropics --- New World tropics --- Spanish America