The story of
Access to Justice in the Americas Project
The idea for the Access to Justice in the Americas Project was developed within the Justice Forum Project, a Brazilian platform that promotes dialogue between social movements, the justice system and academia around democracy and policies for inclusive justice. The first edition of the book has become the main project of Justice Forum’s Ibero-Latin American Working Group (GT ILA-FJ), a branch that aims to promote democratic values in justice systems of countries in the region. The Access to Justice in the Americas proposal was first presented during a third international seminar on “Democracy and the Public Defender’s Office in Latin America”, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 and organized by the GT ILA-FJ, but its historical background begins in 2015, with two international seminars held in Rio de Janeiro to discuss “Latin-American judicial politics from the perspective of the Public Defender’s Office” and “Legal reform in Brazil from a Latin-American point of view”. It soon involved partners in Canada and then incorporated Anglophone and Francophone contributions, making it an Interamerican project.
The project is a multicultural effort that stems from a network of activists, professors, researchers, lawyers, and public defenders across the Americas who have relevant insights about increasing socio-legal responses to the needs of groups in situations of vulnerability with their participation, based on actions in this field. We are interested in analyzing the advantages and limits of current institutional designs, reporting on best practices, enlarging the network of human rights defenders, and proposing original solutions for a more accessible justice system.
However, it is not just about the circulation of knowledge; we intend to foster some political ties that can identify an emerging field of internationalization. Internationalization has always been a strategy to drive attention to an issue.
The central point is to leverage community agents rooted in local contexts by providing them with the resources that a more internationalized field can offer: the recognition of their struggles, a more qualified and diverse audience for their claims, networking and, thus, power to pursue their local goals.
Our values include attention to geographic and culture diversity, the presence of articles in each of the four languages, support for critical and scientific analyses that make use of a consistent theoretical framework and accurate data, respect for the blind peer review model, and the protection and promotion of the well-being of populations in vulnerable situations.
Our vision is to make this project a reference for high-quality intercultural and inter-institutional dialogue in the field of access to justice and judicial politics in the Americas.
Our mission is to promote publications and meeting points for actors from different regions and languages horizontally and constructively. It also involves the promotion of legal approaches based on research on concrete experiences, data, or public policies in order to overcome the dominance of traditional legal dogmatism.
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