Judicial independence and human rights policies in Argentina and Chile

Abstract

By arguing that certain constitutional reforms in a series of Latin American countries since the beginning of the 1990s have enabled the judiciary to take on an increasingly assertive role, I challenge the conventional wisdom that the executive is the sole policy maker in the field of human rights. At the end of 1999, 15 out of 19 Latin American countries had carried out judicial reforms, ranging from minor changes to virtually complete overhauls. Some of these reforms have formally increased the independence of the judiciary vis-à-vis the executive.