Latin America

Provides articles discussing restorative justice advancements in Latin America. Articles appear in the order in which they were added to the site with the most recent appearing first.

Restorative justice.: From John Malkin's article in Good Times: Downtown Santa Cruz, a high school student takes clothes from a store without paying and is caught in the act. Instead of going to jail, she agrees to meet with a store manager to discuss the act and mutually agree on what to do next. An elementary school garden is destroyed by teenagers. During a restorative dialogue, the teenagers sob with sadness, realizing the affect they’ve had on the younger kids who put so much energy into growing their garden. A math teacher’s car is broken into by a young man. They agree to discuss the event in a restorative meeting. The two come to understand each other’s perspective, forgiveness arises and the teacher ends up offering to help tutor the youth in math. During a downtown May Day celebration, windows of 18 businesses are smashed. A sharing circle offers people the chance to discuss how they were affected by the property destruction, and to discover possible ways of building community. These are examples of a growing trend in responding to harmful actions and building trust between individuals and communities called Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice (RJ) is a philosophy that incorporates a diversity of tools to restore safety and connection through voluntary dialogue and mutual agreement. Often these meetings lead to transformational changes in people’s lives.
Promoting Restorative Justice in Panama: By Lynette Parker Although the authority to use mediation in responding to certain crimes first appeared in Panamanian regulations in 1995, such alternatives continue be underutilised by justice system personnel. Subsequent legislation and policies developed by the Ministerio Público have sought to strengthen mediation including the creation of alternative dispute resolution centres in different parts of the country. In 2009, the government put out a request for proposals for consultants to assist with promoting penal mediation throughout the country. The Centro de Conciliación y Arbitraje (Centro) of the Cámara de Comercio, Industrias y Agricultura of Panama won the contract for the project for the development of a system of alternative conflict resolution. In doing so, the Centro contracted Prison Fellowship Panama as consultants on the project. From 28 June thru 1 July, I had the honour and pleasure to work with representatives from both organisations in a series of awareness raising seminars for justice system personnel.
Mexico and New Orleans Learn About Restorative Practices: From the 11 June Restorative Practices E-Forum by Laura Mirsky: Both Mexico and New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, are experiencing high incidences of crime and violence. To find new ways to deal with this issue, participants from both locations recently attended special four-day immersion events at the IIRP’s Bethlehem campus. An April 26-29 event involved 30 criminal and juvenile justice officials from 10 states in Mexico; a May 11-14 immersion included 15 educators and youth-justice professionals from New Orleans. Both groups spent two days visiting the IIRP’s model program schools for at-risk youth, operated by Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont), and two days training in restorative practices. The participants were very excited about what they observed and learned, and most are hoping to begin implementing restorative practices when they return home. The seeds for the Mexicans’ visit were planted when John Bailie, IIRP director of trainers and lecturer at the IIRP Graduate School, presented a paper at the First International Restorative Justice Conference: Humanizing the Approach to Criminal Justice, in Oaxaca, Mexico, in September 2008. Subsequently, Nancy Flemming, coordinator of the alternative justice area of MSI’s (Management Systems International) Programa de Apoyo para el Estado de Derecho en México [Support Program for the Rule of Law in Mexico — PRODERECHO] project, funded by USAID organized the IIRP visit to help immersion attendees find ways to improve their respective states’ criminal justice systems. This undertaking was mandated by a 2006 amendment to the Mexican constitution requiring states to reform their penal codes to make them more effective and more humane — to include oral trials, the right to legal counsel and other legal prerogatives. Many of the immersion participants are involved in this reform process, in a variety of ways.
Restorative Justice Everywhere: Final Update from the UN Crime Congress: Friday (my last day at the UN Crime Congress) was busy with ancillary sessions and sitting through one of the main workshops. The first ancillary session, organised by Prison Fellowship International, looked at Latin American Experiences with Restorative Justice. I opened the session with a brief introduction of the participants describing the goal of the session as opening a dialogue on the various experiences with restorative justice in the region.
More on Restorative Justice at the UN Crime Congress: Day two at the 12th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice didn’t yield as many comments of restorative justice, but there were some interesting statements made especially by the delegates from South Africa and Peru. On 13 April, the Plenary continued its discussion on Children, Youth, and Crime with more member states as well as non-governmental organisations and independent experts.
Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition: by Dan Van Ness I have just received a copy of a research study on the peace negotiations in Colombia: Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition: Ethical and political dilemmas of reparative justice in the midst of internal armed conflict by Sandro Jiménez Ocampo, et al. From 2004 to 2007, the Colombian Government conducted peace negotiations with paramilitary groups. One of the issues negotiated had to do with the claims of people who had been killed or forcibly displace from their land, lands that were held by the combatants when the negotiations began. Forced displacement and deaths continued during the course of the negotiations, creating new claims. While reparation to victims was supposed to be a prominent outcome to the negotiations, the difficulties of negotiating peace in the course of a violent conflict together with the absence of the victims of displacement from the negotiation meant that there were claims of serious inadequacies with the results.
Trauma and Restorative Justice: From Beth Caldwell's blog post at Visions of Justice: I was given a wonderful opportunity in December. Proderecho, the organization in Oaxaca that has helped to connect me to the people and agencies responsible for juvenile justice here, invited me to participate in a course entitled “Seminars on Trauma and Resilience.” My classmates were a group of inspiring women, and two men, working in NGOs in Oaxaca, and in the state prosecutor’s office. The facilitators of the workshop were from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Lima Declaration on Restorative Juvenile Justice: In November 2009, the First World Congress on Restorative Juvenile Justice (Congress) --organised by the Foundation Terre des Hommes, the Public Prosecutor of Peru, the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Perú and the Association Encuentros-Casa de la Juventud -- was held in Lima, Peru. The nearly 1000 conference participants represented 63 countries and various groups such as governments, the judiciary, non-governmental organisation, and professional groups working with children. Five Congressobjectives guided the deliberations: * to reflect upon the concept of restorative juvenile justice and to undertake a critical viability analysis; * to examine the methodology and instruments of restorative juvenile justice; * to evaluate the situation of the victim in restorative juvenile justice and the need for her/his protection and reparation of damages; * to exchange experiences and lessons learned and good practices of restorative juvenile justice worldwide; * to elaborate and present some recommendations for the development and implementation of restorative juvenile justice.
Brazil truth commission arouses military opposition.: From the BBC News article by Gary Duffy: A package of reforms put forward by the Brazilian government to improve human rights is causing growing controversy. A proposed truth commission to investigate torture during military rule is said to have so angered forces chiefs that they threatened to resign.
Mexico training public servants in restorative justice: From 12 October to 6 November, the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE—State Attorney General) of the Mexican State of Oaxaca, in conjunction with the non-governmental organisation Proderecho, hosted diploma course featuring restorative justice and several alternative dispute resolution processes. The course, “Managing conflicts: negotiation, mediation, and restorative justice,” provided an overview of the dynamics of personal and group conflicts and different conflict resolution processes.
Angela's tears - A presentation on the São Paulo RJ projects in Rio de Janeiro: From the post at the Restorative Circles Blog Yesterday was the first formal presentation of the São Paulo RJ project, 'Justiça e educação', to the justice and education communities in Rio de Janeiro. Most of those who have made these projects possible - in São Caetano do Sul, in Guarulhos, in Heliopolis, in Campinas and elsewhere - spoke, and even though the city was under the second day of torrential rain and it was the friday before a holiday weekend, there wasn't a free seat and many stood until the end.
Global Peace Index ranks New Zealand as the world's most peaceful country, Iraq as least peaceful: The Global Peace Index is an annual publication from the Institute for Economics and Peace. It ranks countries based on 23 indicators that are divided into three broad categories: (1) measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, (2) measures of safety and security in society, and (3) measure of militarization.
Mahan,Sue. 2009. Restorative Justice in Colombia.: This paper discusses the development and use of conciliation as alternative to court processes in Colombia.
Rojas Mendoza, Dionisio. 2006. Design of a Restorative Justice Process: Inter-Sectoral Commission for Life and Human RIghts. Barrancabermeja (Colombia). Eastern Mennonite University. Conflict Transformation Program.: This article discusses the possible design of a restorative response to mass violence in Colombia.
Developing Restorative Juvenile Justice in Peru: In Peru, the majority of juvenile offenders are incarcerated, even in cases of petty crime, with close to 68% having sentences of three years or less. This is true despite the inclusion of alternative sentences such as community service and remission of the sentence in the penal code. To address this reality the Switzerland-based NGO Terre des Hommes designed and implemented a pilot project called Justicia Para Crecer to introduce concepts of restorative justice. Partners in this project include the Peruvian NGO Encuentros –Casa de la Juventud and different government entities in the areas of el Agostino and Chiclayo.
. At War with the Past? The Politics of Truth Seeking in Guatemala.: Truth seeking in postwar Guatemala is a political battleground in which perpetrators intent on guarding against accountability confront victims’ associations equally intent on exposing abuses endured during the country's 36-year armed conflict. Having stage-managed the peace negotiations that established the restrictive parameters of Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), army officers and guerilla leaders ceded control of truth seeking to Commission staff and their civil society partners, even as the latter mobilized to push the CEH to its investigative limits. The CEH final report's finding that the army had committed genocide galvanized both sides. Victims’ associations insist on more truth alongside justice and reparations, while army perpetrators reject incriminating Commission findings. The Guatemalan case reveals how truth initiatives are at once politicized and polarizing and how politics interfere with a truth commission's effort to produce a consensus history, end violence or afford reconciliation. While it confirms that confronting the past risks undermining the labor of transition architects, it also suggests that these may be necessary evils that could eventually contribute to transforming and strengthening democracy. (author's abstract)
Wachtel, Joshua. Toward Peace and Justice in Brazil: Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles.: In 2004 the Brazilian Ministry of Justice received a small UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) grant to launch the country’s first official restorative justice (RJ) pilot projects. Recognizing the unique social context of urban violence in Brazil, the projects brought together school administrators, judges, court workers, prison authorities, social service agencies and local community leaders to create a broad restorative response to the most challenging breakdowns in community safety. While justly known for their creative celebration of life, Brazilians also live with glaring wealth imbalances and the normalization of violence: Murder is the principle cause of death for people under 25. (excerpt)
Dierx, Janny. Penal mediation in Argentina and the Netherlands. Dutch Principles and Argentine Practices. A comparative investigation.: This paper offers a comparative investigation of the incorporation of penal mediation in the judicial system of the Netherlands on the one hand and the Province of Buenos Aires and the Federal Capital of Buenos Aires in Argentina on the other hand. In both countries mediation has been introduced in society through legislation and private initiatives. Regarding to institutionalising penal mediation, the situation is different in both countries. In Argentina initiatives to implement penal mediation both through legislation and through projects on a voluntary basis have in some provinces already been taken years ago while in the Netherlands the focus shifted to other restorative practices than mediation. This paper explores the differences in theory and practice of penal mediation in the two countries and the backgrounds of these differences. The paper identifies some good practices and models for implementation of penal mediation in Argentina that might also be of interest to enhance penal mediation in The Netherlands, as more Dutch initiatives concerning penal mediation are likely to be expected. In the seventh chapter of this paper the Argentine Practices are compared to the Dutch Principles that have recently been drafted by a group of Dutch professionals in the field of restorative justice and penal law. One of the conclusions that are being drawn is that the Argentine models show the importance of loyalty to the mediation procedure and mediation techniques and a full authority as a mediator while carrying out victim-offender conversations. Also the proceedings, the outcomes of victim-offender conversations and the position of the moderator of victim-offender conversations benefit from the establishment of a genuine penal mediation process. Another conclusion is that state responsibility and involvement is vital in penal mediation as it has to be connected to the penal process and the consequences of pre-trail penal mediation have to be determined. The Argentine practice, as observed in the context of this paper in two Argentine organisations, also shows the importance of incorporating a ‘double check’ after the penal mediation, albeit marginal, by the public prosecution authorities or the judge. The provincial law of Buenos Aires offers a clear example of putting consequences to successful penal mediation, while respecting the special nature of penal mediation, its confidentiality and differences from the penal process. The Argentine practise for instance carefully makes a difference between participating in penal mediation and ‘pleading guilty’, while the Dutch Principles show a tendency to identify the participation in mediation as specie of pleading guilty. Both systems put the interest of avoiding re-victimisation in the first place. The Argentine system however seems more subtle and workable, especially in cases of minor offences and infractions. (author's abstract)
Valverde, Estela and Humphrey, Michael. Human Rights Politics and Injustice: Transitional Justice in Argentina and South Africa.: Transitional justice is about the recovery of the rule of law and justice after mass violence. In the recent history of Argentina and South Africa, human rights politics have played an important role in the transition from repression to democracy as a discourse of resistance to state repression and as a framework and methodology for the successor state to manage demands for justice and promote reconciliation. Post-transition, they have provided a standard for the accountability of state institutions and evaluation of the democratic government's performance. In this article, we explore the roles of victims, survivors and relatives in the expansion of human rights politics. We argue that victims represent their suffering as embodied injustice and make their victim identity the focus of efforts to recover a moral contract between state and citizens. The expansion of human rights politics to include social and economic rights is an expression of the limits of transitional justice in recovering full citizenship in the context of the neo-liberal democratic project in Argentina and South Africa. (author's abstract)
Garcia-Godos, Jemima. Victim Reparations in the Peruvian Truth Commission and the Challenge of Historical Interpretation.: The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR)) has been praised for challenging positivist approaches to truth by focusing on victims and narrative interpretation. In this article, I argue that such a focus is not as problem-free as widely assumed. In spite of its normative human rights base, the CVR underestimated the issue of historical and political recognition of particular actors during the Peruvian armed conflict – an issue that bears practical and tangible consequences for the actors involved. I use the case of peasant self-defense groups and their treatment regarding potential reparations benefits to explore the challenges involved in combining a human rights agenda with issues of historical interpretation. (author's abstract)

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Navigation Lecture Hall Introduction to Restorative Justice Restorative Justice around the World Africa Asia Europe Latin America Government Reforms National Reconciliation Community Articles from RJ Online All Documents Middle East North America and the Caribbean Pacific Educational Opportunities Restorative Justice Theory Making Amends Restorative Justice Course Syllabi Book Reviews Video Reviews Real People, Real Stories Practice Manuals Evaluation Research Evaluation Tools Role Plays Using Restorative Practices	Info Latin America Provides articles discussing restorative justice advancements in Latin America. Articles appear in the order in which they were added to the site with the most recent appearing first. Argentina \| Brasil \| Chile \| Colombia \| Guatemala \| Mexico \| Nicaragua \| Peru Restorative justice. From John Malkin's article in Good Times: Downtown Santa Cruz, a high school student takes clothes from a store without paying and is caught in the act. Instead of going to jail, she agrees to meet with a store manager to discuss the act and mutually agree on what to do next. An elementary school garden is destroyed by teenagers. During a restorative dialogue, the teenagers sob with sadness, realizing the affect they’ve had on the younger kids who put so much energy into growing their garden. A math teacher’s car is broken into by a young man. They agree to discuss the event in a restorative meeting. The two come to understand each other’s perspective, forgiveness arises and the teacher ends up offering to help tutor the youth in math. During a downtown May Day celebration, windows of 18 businesses are smashed. A sharing circle offers people the chance to discuss how they were affected by the property destruction, and to discover possible ways of building community. These are examples of a growing trend in responding to harmful actions and building trust between individuals and communities called Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice (RJ) is a philosophy that incorporates a diversity of tools to restore safety and connection through voluntary dialogue and mutual agreement. Often these meetings lead to transformational changes in people’s lives. Promoting Restorative Justice in Panama By Lynette Parker Although the authority to use mediation in responding to certain crimes first appeared in Panamanian regulations in 1995, such alternatives continue be underutilised by justice system personnel. Subsequent legislation and policies developed by the Ministerio Público have sought to strengthen mediation including the creation of alternative dispute resolution centres in different parts of the country. In 2009, the government put out a request for proposals for consultants to assist with promoting penal mediation throughout the country. The Centro de Conciliación y Arbitraje (Centro) of the Cámara de Comercio, Industrias y Agricultura of Panama won the contract for the project for the development of a system of alternative conflict resolution. In doing so, the Centro contracted Prison Fellowship Panama as consultants on the project. From 28 June thru 1 July, I had the honour and pleasure to work with representatives from both organisations in a series of awareness raising seminars for justice system personnel. Mexico and New Orleans Learn About Restorative Practices From the 11 June Restorative Practices E-Forum by Laura Mirsky: Both Mexico and New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, are experiencing high incidences of crime and violence. To find new ways to deal with this issue, participants from both locations recently attended special four-day immersion events at the IIRP’s Bethlehem campus. An April 26-29 event involved 30 criminal and juvenile justice officials from 10 states in Mexico; a May 11-14 immersion included 15 educators and youth-justice professionals from New Orleans. Both groups spent two days visiting the IIRP’s model program schools for at-risk youth, operated by Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont), and two days training in restorative practices. The participants were very excited about what they observed and learned, and most are hoping to begin implementing restorative practices when they return home. The seeds for the Mexicans’ visit were planted when John Bailie, IIRP director of trainers and lecturer at the IIRP Graduate School, presented a paper at the First International Restorative Justice Conference: Humanizing the Approach to Criminal Justice, in Oaxaca, Mexico, in September 2008. Subsequently, Nancy Flemming, coordinator of the alternative justice area of MSI’s (Management Systems International) Programa de Apoyo para el Estado de Derecho en México [Support Program for the Rule of Law in Mexico — PRODERECHO] project, funded by USAID organized the IIRP visit to help immersion attendees find ways to improve their respective states’ criminal justice systems. This undertaking was mandated by a 2006 amendment to the Mexican constitution requiring states to reform their penal codes to make them more effective and more humane — to include oral trials, the right to legal counsel and other legal prerogatives. Many of the immersion participants are involved in this reform process, in a variety of ways. Restorative Justice Everywhere: Final Update from the UN Crime Congress Friday (my last day at the UN Crime Congress) was busy with ancillary sessions and sitting through one of the main workshops. The first ancillary session, organised by Prison Fellowship International, looked at Latin American Experiences with Restorative Justice. I opened the session with a brief introduction of the participants describing the goal of the session as opening a dialogue on the various experiences with restorative justice in the region. More on Restorative Justice at the UN Crime Congress Day two at the 12th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice didn’t yield as many comments of restorative justice, but there were some interesting statements made especially by the delegates from South Africa and Peru. On 13 April, the Plenary continued its discussion on Children, Youth, and Crime with more member states as well as non-governmental organisations and independent experts. Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition by Dan Van Ness I have just received a copy of a research study on the peace negotiations in Colombia: Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition: Ethical and political dilemmas of reparative justice in the midst of internal armed conflict by Sandro Jiménez Ocampo, et al. From 2004 to 2007, the Colombian Government conducted peace negotiations with paramilitary groups. One of the issues negotiated had to do with the claims of people who had been killed or forcibly displace from their land, lands that were held by the combatants when the negotiations began. Forced displacement and deaths continued during the course of the negotiations, creating new claims. While reparation to victims was supposed to be a prominent outcome to the negotiations, the difficulties of negotiating peace in the course of a violent conflict together with the absence of the victims of displacement from the negotiation meant that there were claims of serious inadequacies with the results. Trauma and Restorative Justice From Beth Caldwell's blog post at Visions of Justice: I was given a wonderful opportunity in December. Proderecho, the organization in Oaxaca that has helped to connect me to the people and agencies responsible for juvenile justice here, invited me to participate in a course entitled “Seminars on Trauma and Resilience.” My classmates were a group of inspiring women, and two men, working in NGOs in Oaxaca, and in the state prosecutor’s office. The facilitators of the workshop were from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Lima Declaration on Restorative Juvenile Justice In November 2009, the First World Congress on Restorative Juvenile Justice (Congress) --organised by the Foundation Terre des Hommes, the Public Prosecutor of Peru, the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Perú and the Association Encuentros-Casa de la Juventud -- was held in Lima, Peru. The nearly 1000 conference participants represented 63 countries and various groups such as governments, the judiciary, non-governmental organisation, and professional groups working with children. Five Congressobjectives guided the deliberations: * to reflect upon the concept of restorative juvenile justice and to undertake a critical viability analysis; * to examine the methodology and instruments of restorative juvenile justice; * to evaluate the situation of the victim in restorative juvenile justice and the need for her/his protection and reparation of damages; * to exchange experiences and lessons learned and good practices of restorative juvenile justice worldwide; * to elaborate and present some recommendations for the development and implementation of restorative juvenile justice. Brazil truth commission arouses military opposition. From the BBC News article by Gary Duffy: A package of reforms put forward by the Brazilian government to improve human rights is causing growing controversy. A proposed truth commission to investigate torture during military rule is said to have so angered forces chiefs that they threatened to resign. Mexico training public servants in restorative justice From 12 October to 6 November, the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE—State Attorney General) of the Mexican State of Oaxaca, in conjunction with the non-governmental organisation Proderecho, hosted diploma course featuring restorative justice and several alternative dispute resolution processes. The course, “Managing conflicts: negotiation, mediation, and restorative justice,” provided an overview of the dynamics of personal and group conflicts and different conflict resolution processes. Angela's tears - A presentation on the São Paulo RJ projects in Rio de Janeiro From the post at the Restorative Circles Blog Yesterday was the first formal presentation of the São Paulo RJ project, 'Justiça e educação', to the justice and education communities in Rio de Janeiro. Most of those who have made these projects possible - in São Caetano do Sul, in Guarulhos, in Heliopolis, in Campinas and elsewhere - spoke, and even though the city was under the second day of torrential rain and it was the friday before a holiday weekend, there wasn't a free seat and many stood until the end. Global Peace Index ranks New Zealand as the world's most peaceful country, Iraq as least peaceful The Global Peace Index is an annual publication from the Institute for Economics and Peace. It ranks countries based on 23 indicators that are divided into three broad categories: (1) measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, (2) measures of safety and security in society, and (3) measure of militarization. Mahan,Sue. 2009. Restorative Justice in Colombia. This paper discusses the development and use of conciliation as alternative to court processes in Colombia. Rojas Mendoza, Dionisio. 2006. Design of a Restorative Justice Process: Inter-Sectoral Commission for Life and Human RIghts. Barrancabermeja (Colombia). Eastern Mennonite University. Conflict Transformation Program. This article discusses the possible design of a restorative response to mass violence in Colombia. Developing Restorative Juvenile Justice in Peru In Peru, the majority of juvenile offenders are incarcerated, even in cases of petty crime, with close to 68% having sentences of three years or less. This is true despite the inclusion of alternative sentences such as community service and remission of the sentence in the penal code. To address this reality the Switzerland-based NGO Terre des Hommes designed and implemented a pilot project called Justicia Para Crecer to introduce concepts of restorative justice. Partners in this project include the Peruvian NGO Encuentros –Casa de la Juventud and different government entities in the areas of el Agostino and Chiclayo. . At War with the Past? The Politics of Truth Seeking in Guatemala. Truth seeking in postwar Guatemala is a political battleground in which perpetrators intent on guarding against accountability confront victims’ associations equally intent on exposing abuses endured during the country's 36-year armed conflict. Having stage-managed the peace negotiations that established the restrictive parameters of Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), army officers and guerilla leaders ceded control of truth seeking to Commission staff and their civil society partners, even as the latter mobilized to push the CEH to its investigative limits. The CEH final report's finding that the army had committed genocide galvanized both sides. Victims’ associations insist on more truth alongside justice and reparations, while army perpetrators reject incriminating Commission findings. The Guatemalan case reveals how truth initiatives are at once politicized and polarizing and how politics interfere with a truth commission's effort to produce a consensus history, end violence or afford reconciliation. While it confirms that confronting the past risks undermining the labor of transition architects, it also suggests that these may be necessary evils that could eventually contribute to transforming and strengthening democracy. (author's abstract) Wachtel, Joshua. Toward Peace and Justice in Brazil: Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles. In 2004 the Brazilian Ministry of Justice received a small UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) grant to launch the country’s first official restorative justice (RJ) pilot projects. Recognizing the unique social context of urban violence in Brazil, the projects brought together school administrators, judges, court workers, prison authorities, social service agencies and local community leaders to create a broad restorative response to the most challenging breakdowns in community safety. While justly known for their creative celebration of life, Brazilians also live with glaring wealth imbalances and the normalization of violence: Murder is the principle cause of death for people under 25. (excerpt) Dierx, Janny. Penal mediation in Argentina and the Netherlands. Dutch Principles and Argentine Practices. A comparative investigation. This paper offers a comparative investigation of the incorporation of penal mediation in the judicial system of the Netherlands on the one hand and the Province of Buenos Aires and the Federal Capital of Buenos Aires in Argentina on the other hand. In both countries mediation has been introduced in society through legislation and private initiatives. Regarding to institutionalising penal mediation, the situation is different in both countries. In Argentina initiatives to implement penal mediation both through legislation and through projects on a voluntary basis have in some provinces already been taken years ago while in the Netherlands the focus shifted to other restorative practices than mediation. This paper explores the differences in theory and practice of penal mediation in the two countries and the backgrounds of these differences. The paper identifies some good practices and models for implementation of penal mediation in Argentina that might also be of interest to enhance penal mediation in The Netherlands, as more Dutch initiatives concerning penal mediation are likely to be expected. In the seventh chapter of this paper the Argentine Practices are compared to the Dutch Principles that have recently been drafted by a group of Dutch professionals in the field of restorative justice and penal law. One of the conclusions that are being drawn is that the Argentine models show the importance of loyalty to the mediation procedure and mediation techniques and a full authority as a mediator while carrying out victim-offender conversations. Also the proceedings, the outcomes of victim-offender conversations and the position of the moderator of victim-offender conversations benefit from the establishment of a genuine penal mediation process. Another conclusion is that state responsibility and involvement is vital in penal mediation as it has to be connected to the penal process and the consequences of pre-trail penal mediation have to be determined. The Argentine practice, as observed in the context of this paper in two Argentine organisations, also shows the importance of incorporating a ‘double check’ after the penal mediation, albeit marginal, by the public prosecution authorities or the judge. The provincial law of Buenos Aires offers a clear example of putting consequences to successful penal mediation, while respecting the special nature of penal mediation, its confidentiality and differences from the penal process. The Argentine practise for instance carefully makes a difference between participating in penal mediation and ‘pleading guilty’, while the Dutch Principles show a tendency to identify the participation in mediation as specie of pleading guilty. Both systems put the interest of avoiding re-victimisation in the first place. The Argentine system however seems more subtle and workable, especially in cases of minor offences and infractions. (author's abstract) Valverde, Estela and Humphrey, Michael. Human Rights Politics and Injustice: Transitional Justice in Argentina and South Africa. Transitional justice is about the recovery of the rule of law and justice after mass violence. In the recent history of Argentina and South Africa, human rights politics have played an important role in the transition from repression to democracy as a discourse of resistance to state repression and as a framework and methodology for the successor state to manage demands for justice and promote reconciliation. Post-transition, they have provided a standard for the accountability of state institutions and evaluation of the democratic government's performance. In this article, we explore the roles of victims, survivors and relatives in the expansion of human rights politics. We argue that victims represent their suffering as embodied injustice and make their victim identity the focus of efforts to recover a moral contract between state and citizens. The expansion of human rights politics to include social and economic rights is an expression of the limits of transitional justice in recovering full citizenship in the context of the neo-liberal democratic project in Argentina and South Africa. (author's abstract) Garcia-Godos, Jemima. Victim Reparations in the Peruvian Truth Commission and the Challenge of Historical Interpretation. The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR)) has been praised for challenging positivist approaches to truth by focusing on victims and narrative interpretation. In this article, I argue that such a focus is not as problem-free as widely assumed. In spite of its normative human rights base, the CVR underestimated the issue of historical and political recognition of particular actors during the Peruvian armed conflict – an issue that bears practical and tangible consequences for the actors involved. I use the case of peasant self-defense groups and their treatment regarding potential reparations benefits to explore the challenges involved in combining a human rights agenda with issues of historical interpretation. (author's abstract) Next 20 items » [1] 2 3 4 ... 8 Document Actions Send this Print this	Africa Asia Europe Latin America Middle East North America and Caribbean Pacific Search 9932 publications on restorative justice Recent RJOB Comments Oakland as a RJ city? Jul 29, 2010 Trauma Jul 29, 2010 Psych Reports to BPT board Jul 29, 2010 More… Slide Show: What is Restorative Justice Click to view a slideshow discussing the definition of restorative justice. Jul 21, 2010 Promoting Restorative Justice in Panama Jul 28, 2010 Raising Community Awareness in Swaziland Jul 28, 2010 Exploring alternatives in Finland Jul 28, 2010 PF Rwanda Receives Grant for Reconciliation Work Jun 27, 2010 Restorative Justice in the Community.