Indigenous Community Justice in the Bolivian Constitution of 2009

Abstract

The Bolivian constitution, debated in a Constituent Assembly in 2006 and 2007 called by the country’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, wasadopted in a referendum in 2009. Among many other important provisionsrecognizing the country’s majority indigenous population, it legitimizesthe practice of indigenous community justice. Indigenous justice differs inimportant ways from the national justice system and from the internationalhuman rights regime but it expresses a legitimate assertion by the country’sindigenous peoples of their cultural integrity.