04 February 2025
Law, Coercion, and State Crime
On January 26, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced via Truth Social retaliatory measures against Colombia following President Gustavo Petro’s refusal to allow US deportation flights. These included a 25% emergency tariff on Colombian imports, escalating to 50% within a week. The Trump administration’s use of unilateral economic sanctions on countries opposing US policies is part of a long history of imperial interventions. Sanctions are central to the colonial arsenal of economic statecraft, disproportionately targeting the Global South. I argue that sanctions should be recognized as a form of state crime due to their socially injurious effects. Continue reading >>
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14 November 2024
An Antidote To Constitutional Authoritarian Populism?
Presidential reelection is once more a focal point in Latin American constitutional law. The amendment to the 2010 Dominican Constitution, approved in October 2024, modifies the presidential term to bar future changes that would permit unlimited presidential reelection. This reform opposes the populist trend that argues for the people’s unconditional right to reelect the incumbent president, as witnessed in Venezuela and Chile. However, as cases like El Salvador demonstrate, constitutional design may be insufficient to deter abusive interpretations by constitutional courts. Continue reading >>
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04 January 2022
Restoring the Validity of Law in Democratic Societies
The questions posed by Professors Andrew Arato and András Sajó in their open letter Restoring Constitutionalism are pressing and of utmost public importance. Many of the issues and controversies raised in the letter arise after “democratic backsliding has taken place” and when the constitution already includes “entrenched authoritarian enclaves”. Taking this context into consideration, I will examine a more basic issue, namely the validity of law in a democratic society. Continue reading >>
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26 February 2018
History, Memory and Pardon in Latin American Constitutionalism
Do pardons have an effect on crimes against humanity? For the last few days, Peruvian society has been debating the pardon of its former president Alberto Fujimori, who has been convicted of crimes against humanity in 2009. On February 20 at the Max Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, the Legal Historian and member of the Constitutional Court of Peru, Dr. Carlos Ramos Núñez, presented a crucial intervention on the problems that face the current constitutionalism in Latin America. Continue reading >>
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