Latin America & The Caribbean

Over the last decade, the landscape in this region has featured significant achievements, opportunities for further progress, and some daunting challenges. National courts and legislatures—both complemented and spurred by judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—have deepened and defined fundamental rights concerning freedom of expression, access to information, and criminal justice—areas central to the Open Society Justice Initiative’s work.

In a landmark decision in 2006, sparked in part by Justice Initiative litigation, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights became the first international tribunal to rule that citizens of a country have right to information held by their government. Nearly twenty Latin nations now recognize—by virtue of explicit statute, constitutional provision, or interpretation—a right to seek and receive information.

Regional and national level court decisions have begun to chip away at historically overbroad libel, defamation, and “insult” laws, though important challenges—such as removing criminal penalties, including prison sentences, for such speech—remain.

While physical abuse of journalists has abated significantly in most, though not all, Latin nations, groundbreaking reports by the Justice Initiative and regional partners have uncovered a new generation of “soft” censorship concerns. Two significant studies, Buying the News and The Price of Silence, demonstrated that many governments now wield behind-the-scenes pressure to interfere with media freedom and editorial independence. Governments retaliate against critical news coverage by cutting off desperately needed advertising revenues, manipulate licensing processes, and pressure editors and owners to stifle intrepid reporters.  

In criminal justice, Latin America’s status as the primary proving ground for significant substantive, procedural, and institutional reforms is under threat. Playing on public concerns about personal security, opponents of reform have sought to rollback hard fought gains in many countries, targeting in particular bail and detention reform, which has made important inroads. Latin America is still the region most dependent on jailing suspects even as they await trial

Yet in about a dozen countries, legislatures have reversed course, removing obstacles to detention before trial. Many such provisions may be ripe for legal challenge, since they run counter to established law that requires pretrial detention to be a last resource. To arm reformers with facts, the Justice Initiative has pioneered methods of calculating the true financial costs of pretrial detention, and is developing research linking the practice to serious human rights violations, public health problems, and corruption. The Justice Initiative is also piloting the region’s first pretrial service unit, in Mexico’s Morelos State, designed to help justice systems better evaluate and supervise candidates for pretrial release.

Finally, the Justice Initiative is working with advocates in the Dominican Republic to challenge citizenship-related discrimination. After the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2005 called on the Dominican government to end its discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent, the government hardened its policies and began retroactively denying recognition of their citizenship. Those affected are from all walks of life—schoolteachers, lawyers, community organizers, doctors, entertainers, caregivers, students, and military officers—and are in danger of becoming stateless in the country of their birth and residency.