Justice Model in Latin American Folklore

The present epoch is the time of intense international communication. Effective interaction of ethnicities demands, however, to construct the dialogue of cultures on the basis of justice. Moreover, we argue that local justice models need to take priority over the international justice model. Local justice models are reflected in folklore. In this article, we analyze Colombian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, and Bolivian ethnic tales of justice. The purpose of our research is to reveal and systematize justice models in Latin American folklore including contextual, general, private, evolutionary, demographic, historical, divine, ecological, restorative, formal, selective, procedural, and other justice models.

Reimagining Pretrial & Sentencing

In this article, we discuss the evolution of criminal justice reform efforts focused on pretrial and sentencing policies and practices that resulted in unprecedented rates of incarceration. There is an urgent need to identify a strategy of pretrial justice and sentencing that will reduce crime and victimization, ameliorate unwarranted disparities, and reclaim human capital currently lost to incarceration. A discussion of proposed policy reforms should begin by first identifying the costs incurred by pretrial decisions (and across further decision points in the justice system) on both the system and the collateral costs to the detained, their families and their communities. In the short-term, jurisdictions should reconsider probation and parole policies and practices that contribute to mass incarceration. Mid-term improvements require inter-agency approaches by law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts to institute alternatives to incarceration and collaborate with health and community organizations to address underlying issues that lead to local justice system intervention. Importantly, what we highlight is the need for a long-term approach designed to slow the flow of individuals into jails and prisons and to reduce the lengths of sentences they are serving.

Cuando se tejen los sueños. La voz de la mujer sapara y su pueblo

This article analyzes the relationship between the extractivist model in Ecuador and state violence against Amazonian women defenders based on the case of Nema Grefa, President of the Sapara Nation of Ecuador (NASE), who has been intimidated and threatened with death on several occasions. From the demand for protective action and request for precautionary measures in favor of the leader and the Sapara people. The analysis of this case discusses collective and women’s rights in a local justice scenario, where the articulation of indigenous organizations, organizations for the defense of women’s rights, ecofeminists and the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo) will be key.

Pamela's Complaint: Injury, Rights, and the Politics of Story

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded uses a literary form of legal complaint to argue that Pamela has been injured by B's violent advances. Richardson suggests that these advances should be treated as legal wrongs and that Pamela deserves to be righted. However, her social status and her servitude to her local justice of the peace make recourse impossible. Along with the rest of the characters, B rejects her complaint, insisting instead that it is his reputation that has been injured by Pamela's pleas and that he, not Pamela, stands in need of remedy. Their contest over harm and remedy is an allegory of common law justice for victims of sexual violence: it tends to treat their complaints as malevolent prosecutions, directing legal scrutiny toward the victims of sexual violence rather than toward its perpetrators. Richardson's political critique of the legal system engenders an outsider theory of rights. Institutional accounts of rights suggest that rights are personal attributes of the individual or the unique inheritance of the English subject, but Pamela argues that they arise out of political conflicts over what counts as harm and what harm should be remedied. Historians, political theorists, and literary critics tend to agree that the novel reflects and consolidates these institutional rubrics, but this reading shows that outsider demands for legal remedy pose a unique threat to institutional political power.

Reforming the judicial system in the territory of Belarus during the reign of Paul I (1796–1801)

The article deals with the content and results of the reforms in the judicial sphere in the territory of Belarus, which took place during the reign of Paul I. He declared the recognition of special rights and privileges for the territory, which was annexed to Russia as a result of partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the so-called Western provinces). First of all, this was reflected in the reform of the judicial system here. The main content of these changes was the restoration of the judiciary of the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although not in full. The article concluded that the reforms of Paul I in the judicial sphere in the territory of the Western provinces were an attempt to form here the judicial system on the basis of local justice traditions of the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but given the realities of the autocratic Russian Empire. The local judicial system, which was established at that time, was similar to the former (before annexing to Russia) – was partially restored former judiciary, continued to use local rights, local nobility had considerable authority in the justice sphere. But at the same time on many aspects this judicial system was significantly different from the former in the direction of unification with the Russian judicial traditions (using of Russian laws, the appointment of some judges by the government, the significant role of governors in the justice, the subordination of the highest court – the Senate, etc.).

What justice and for whom? A political ecology of voice study into ‘senses of justice’ in Peru's Loreto Region

This article explores community-based organisation and non-governmental organisation ‘senses of justice’ and their interaction with community procedural environmental justice claims. The research was centred on a study of Peru’s Loreto Region and the pollution impacts from oil extraction. This was conducted through the political ecology of voice theoretical framework which can act as a bridge between the fields of environmental justice and political ecology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight relevant non-governmental organisations and four community-based organisations operating in Loreto, alongside testimony from other stakeholders. Results show that sense of justice synergies can occur between non-state actors and local communities, achieved through inclusive participatory mechanisms and equitable partnerships. This synergy enables local struggles to be made visible to the wider world as well as heard, evidenced through the grievances being addressed by the state and resource extraction industries. Nevertheless, how transformative these partnerships are is variable, with procedural legal justice offering the most beneficial way for community-based organisations and non-governmental organisations to support local justice struggles. Moreover, to be truly a transformative process, there is a need for these legal justice partnerships to challenge the deeper structural injustice of misrecognition so that human rights, alternative livelihoods and developmental futures are recognised and safeguarded.