Law Commons^™

Introduction, Colin Crawford, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The papers gathered in this volume analyze access to justice in Latin America, Europe, and North America from a philosophical, legal, and sociological perspective. In these three regions of the world, as in the rest of the globe, liberal democracies face a troubling gap between the normative and the descriptive: the access to justice promises made by the legal and political system are not fully realized in practice. The studies collected here, therefore, share two baseline assumptions. First, the right of access to justice is fundamental in a liberal state. Access to justice ensures that citizens are able to defend …

The Mandarins Of The Law: Pro Bono Legal Work From A Comparative Perspective, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In Part I, I present the elements that form the standard global concept of pro bono work. Pro bono work is a global phenomenon defined by, and based on, a transnational discourse. In the first section of Part I, I argue that this transnational discourse conceptualizes pro bono work as a set of institutionalized free legal services that lawyers voluntarily provide to people with few financial resources or to protect the public interest. In the three following sections, I specify and analyze the concepts of subject, time, and space that this understanding of pro bono work creates, to present the …

Pro Bono Work In Colombia: How Can It Help Broaden, Equalize, And Ensure Access To Justice, Ana Bejarano Ricaurte

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article does not discuss whether pro bono programs should exist in Colombia, or whether they cause positive transformation in the legal profession. These issues are examined in other types of legal literature, and this author departs from the standpoint of viewing this type of work as a positive practice within the legal culture. The main thesis of this article is that pro bono work is still developing in Colombia, both in its numbers of participating attorneys and clients, as well as in the ways it is affecting the legal culture. As important as it might be, the work of …

The Legal Fiction Of The Right To Defense In The Colombian Criminal Justice System, Manuel Iturralde

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In the first section of the article, I will discuss Omar's case to show why he did not have a fair trial, and particularly how his rights to access to justice and to defense were infringed, both by the public defense he was provided and by the judges that decided his case.

In the second section, I will show that Omar's case is a tellingillustration of the features of the Colombian criminal justice system, which systematically and disproportionately sentences and imprisons marginalized and poor people-in great measure because they lack the financial resources to pay for better and more motivated …

Troubling The Victim/Trafficker Dichotomy In Efforts To Combat Human Trafficking: The Unintended Consequences Of Moralizing Labor Migration, Kay Warren

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This analysis examines the violent predator/innocent victim paradigm employed by many governmental and nongovernmental organizations active in monitoring and combating transnational human trafficking. One common treatment of the issue moralizes victims as innocent women and children who have been deceived and coerced into exploitative sex work; another constructs human trafficking as modern day slavery which takes a variety of forms and requires foreign intervention to organize rescues and redemption. Both views see human trafficking, most especially sex trafficking, as an exceptional crime with distinct predators and victims and cultivate moral outrage as a strategic tool to combat coerced labor. This …