Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies

Introduction. Justice for International Crimes

2024-10-29T10:20:36+01:00

Institutions of Research and Education, patent rights and the access to genetic heritage and associated traditional knowledge

2024-02-12T09:23:11+01:00

This article analyzes the profile of access to genetic heritage and patenting at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), based on the context of transition between Provisional Measure no. 2,186-16/2001 and Act no. 13,123/2015. In this perspective, the methodological approach is the case study. According to this research, the UFMG predominantly uses samples of the Brazilian genetic heritage from fauna, flora, and microorganisms and patents more inventions derived from access to the genetic heritage in the period after Act no. 13,123/2015. In conclusion, the university tends to direct its accesses to peculiar components of Brazilian biodiversity. Furthermore, these accesses generate specific inventions, which have relevant commercial capacity. Finally, with the enactment of Act no. 13,123/2015, the calls from the academic community for the creation of this new juridical system interfered with the scenario of research that focuses on Brazilian biodiversity.

The automaton-judge

2024-03-19T14:57:42+01:00

Could robots replace judges in decision-making? The remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence bring this possibility closer than ever before. In this article, I will explore the underlying reasons for the success of the idea of using artificial intelligence in the justice field. The argument is that after the crisis of legal formalism, the prospect offered by artificial intelligence represents a nostalgic return to the past: that of a decision-making as a “mechanical” act, free from subjectivity and irrationality. This ideal, after being outdated as early as the last century, is becoming relevant again thanks to the spread of artificial intelligence tools. By reflecting on the potential positive and negative consequences that may arise from implementing computerized decision-making in justice, this article will aim to provide a more realistic understanding of the future of AI in judicial systems.

Gender stereotypes and adolescent girls deprived of liberty in Chile

2024-02-09T09:02:43+01:00

This paper briefly discusses the presence of gender stereotypes in the treatment of adolescent girls deprived of their liberty in Chile. The paper begins by presenting the concept of gender stereotypes and reviewing the main recommendations from the international human rights framework regarding the need to eliminate stereotypes in the justice system in general and in the treatment of adolescent girls deprived of their liberty in particular. It then uses interviews with professionals who work directly with adolescent girls deprived of their liberty to explain, through their words, the main gender stereotypes present in relation to them, which are mainly related to characteristics such as the emotionality, intensity and complexity of adolescent girls. In addition, the analysis of the interviews conducted with the adolescent girls who were in the centres at the time of the visits and who agreed to participate in the study is also included. Finally, a brief reflection is presented on the presence of these stereotypes and how they have their origin in the gender order, the socialisation that the girls receive, and also the violence to which they are exposed, to conclude by reflecting on the State's inability, to date, to provide the conditions and tools for the treatment of adolescent girls deprived of liberty free of gender stereotypes, thus complying with human rights recommendations.

Legal anthropology and interdisciplinary perspectives

2024-03-26T16:59:36+01:00

This article is based on a literature review and analysis of studies related to social and armed conflicts in the Northern Cauca sub-region, where there is a diversity of ethnic communities such as indigenous peoples, especially the Nasa people, black communities and zones of peasant reserve. Methodologically, the review of publications made by legal anthropologists, sociologists and lawyers, and the researchers' own experience in the field, adding a critical analysis of the data collected, the conflictive panorama and transitional justice is shown from a historical-critical perspective. in a region rich in biodiversity and the possible transformations of the conflict.

Being a scholar in a law school in Brazil

2024-05-20T12:35:56+02:00

This qualitative research was structured as an observant participation in an atypical group of full-time professors in a law school in Brazil. It aimed at analyzing the formation of a professional identity in the group of scholars. We conducted 24 narrative interviews with members of the group. They were recorded in video (25.4h). We use the dramaturgical method (Goffman) to make sense of the interviews, paying special attention to the analysis of the symbolics elements of distinction (Bourdieu) mentioned by the interviewed professionals when speaking about their views on the career and their description of their own “taste” (for clothes, hobbies, music, etc.). We labeled their professional identity as “shy” because it is based on the constant need of social justification. This identity was built in a conflictual interaction with “practical” professors and around the ideas of vocation to work and the value of a certain academic lifestyle.

The recognition of migrants in the European Union

2024-05-15T10:54:06+02:00

The absence of justice in European migration policy finds its maximum expression in measures related to migration control and the surveillance of its external borders. This article examines some legislative acts of the political-institutional discourse of the European Union (EU) where the lack of recognition of migrants is observed, affecting equally the individual rights of asylum seekers and migrants in general. On the one hand, the categorization of people into “economic migrants” or asylum seekers along with the rejection at the border or difficulty of migrants in availing themselves their right to international protection is raised. On the other hand, the registration and biometric identification of migrants within the framework of border control and the collective return of migrants through readmission agreements with third countries in the context of border externalisation in the EU is specified.

The railway and legal challenges in southern Mexico: Campeche and Yucatán

2024-06-13T10:12:35+02:00

In the second half of the 19th century, in the Yucatecan peninsula of Mexico, within the states of Campeche and Yucatan, railroads full of wagons filled with bales of the henequen plant mainly crossed. What is the experience of legal issues related to railroad construction in the 19th century and later centuries, especially of the current development project? The question contributes to the current debate about the impact of the Mayan Train – underway since the end of 2023 – on the social, economic and legal dimension of Southern Mexico.

Transitioning societies: South Africa and Argentina. How power dynamics impact the ‘contract for truth’

2024-03-22T09:08:51+01:00

Both South Africa and Argentina have experienced tyrannical and oppressive periods of political leadership. Ultimately, this has led both nations to ask - how do we create a stable future, and how do we come to terms with the crimes of the past? This piece will look at the mechanisms that were employed by both countries throughout this process and the outcomes they achieved. More importantly though, it will frame the responses in a contract analogy. It will look to the ‘bargain’ struck between victims and perpetrators. It will then critically analyse the way that existing power structures shape this ‘bargain’ and how it impacts the extent and quality of truth, along with outcomes for victims.

Sexual violence in trials for crimes against humanity in Argentina and Uruguay

2024-05-29T10:17:13+02:00

As in other dictatorships in the Southern Cone, during the last military dictatorships in Argentina (1976-1983) and Uruguay (1973-1985), women prisoners were victims of different forms of sexual violence. In Argentina, only in recent years, after the reopening of trials for crimes against humanity and with considerable resistance, the possibility of trying sexual violence as a crime distinct from torture began to be considered, and in 2010 the first conviction for this crime was handed down. In 2011, a criminal complaint was filed for the first time for rape and sexual abuse committed during the period of the Uruguayan military dictatorship made collectively by 28 former female political prisoners. In this paper we will describe the paths taken by the justice system in each of the countries and the changing moments of memory in order to finally analyze the process of shaping and organizing these complaints and to report on the main legal debates about the possibility of prosecuting these crimes in both countries. Studying the Argentine and Uruguayan cases together will allow us to address the specific characteristics of each national historical development but, at the same time, will seek to account for a process that exceeds national boundaries.

Making the state by way of judging

2024-04-08T12:34:17+02:00

One of the most significant institutional developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the last war (1992-1995) was the establishment of the state-level Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its relevance increased when, as part of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s exit strategy, it was decided that a War Crimes Chamber would be established in the Court to continue the trial process. It should be noted that the very existence of an integral state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (one of the reasons for the war) is still in question today. Thus the creation of the Court was interpreted as a bid to strengthen state capacities. For this reason, since its very establishment, and even more so for its task of judging the war, it has been resented by the political leadership of one of the country's entities, the Republika Srpska, which has even tried to eliminate it. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to analyze how the Court itself perceives its actions (through statements of its presidency and official publications), especially the adjudication of war crimes, in the context of the debates on what the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be. The focus is on the period 2004-2017, when the presidency of the Court was held by Meddžida Kreso, particularly active in promoting her institution and in helping to identify it as an expression of the state.

Ten years after Ayotzinapa

2024-04-23T15:14:18+02:00

It has been 10 years since the attacks that led to the forced disappearance of a group of students from the rural school of Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero and families have not been able to access justice and truth. Despite demonstrations of solidarity that went beyond Mexico's borders, the fate of the 43 students remains unknown until today. Although with the polemic construction of the “historical truth,” there were attempts in an initial investigation to close the case, with the international cooperation of human rights organizations and new lines of investigation it has been confirmed in the official Truth Commission (COVAJ) that it was a case of enforced disappearance, classified as a State Crime. This article aims to offer a balance of the investigation process not only analyzing the persisting impunity, but also taking into account the presence of external institutions as coadjuvants, such as the protest movement in Mexico and international solidarity in the face of serous human rights violations against the students and their families.

Uses of digital interactive devices in trials for crimes against humanity

2024-03-01T09:07:39+01:00

The article reflects on the use of digital immersive technologies on the judicial space as long as bodies, objects and scenarios of crimes can be created/recreated, digitized and incorporated into oral audiences as proof of massacres or genocides. From the description of the use of interactive digital devices that recreate extermination centers of the Argentine dictatorship in audiences for crimes against humanity, I will question the relationship between technological resources and the production policies of truth and plausibility that enables them to participate in the judicial stage. Taking social sciences as a starting point, it is expected to show the productivity and potential of these technological resources in the field of criminal persecution, contributing to the work of jurists and justice system operators.

The colonial limits of the criminalization of ecocide before the International Criminal Court

2024-03-19T15:57:28+01:00

The international criminalization of ecocide has been the subject of debate for the last fifty years, with the most recent proposal appearing in the context of accelerating climate change. This article aims to engage in this debate, starting from the field of Latin American critical criminology, informed by decolonial literature, indigenous climate studies and Southern green criminology. Through theoretical and documentary research, the article aims to understand how the stated objectives of the criminalization of ecocide at the international level dialect with the cognitive and material bases of the operationalization of the international criminal justice system, especially with regard to the colonial origins of genocide, ecocide and the actual operationalization of the International Criminal Court itself.