César Rodríguez-Garavito is Associate Professor of Law and founding Director of the Program on Global Justice and Human Rights at the University of the Andes (Bogota, Colombia). He is a founding member of the Center for Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia), a Hauser Global Fellow at NYU Law School and an Affiliate Professor of the Law, Societies and Justice Program at the University of Washington. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Buenos Aires, the Andean University of Quito, and the Irish Center for Human Rights.

He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. (Sociology) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. from NYU’s Institute for Law and Society, an M.A. (Philosophy) from the National University of Colombia, and a J.D. from the University of the Andes. He is the author of numerous books and articles on law, globalization, human rights, and social movements. His recent publications include "The Global Expansion of the Rule of Law"; “Ethnicity.gov: Global Governance, Indigenous Rights and the Juridification of Survival”; "Courts and Social Change: How the Constitutional Court Transformed Forced Displacement in Colombia" (coauthor), and "Law and Globalization from Below: Toward a Cosmopolitan Legality" (coed.).


E-mail: cerogara@gmail.com
Website: http://www.cesarrodriguez.net

Serious Social Rights: Toward a dialogue between rights and public politics

Offering an interdisciplinary analysis on the conceptual relations between the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (DESC) and public policies, the authors maintain that the protection of rights does not have to be incumbent only on the judges. The authors contribute to bridging the normative nature of rights and the technical and economic nature of public policies. The book investigates the application of various social rights with an emphasis on the right to education.

Justice for All? The judicial system, social rights and democracy in Colombia

The objective of this book is to offer an explanation of the origin, content and effect of the recent transformations in justice. The authors also undertake the challenge of evaluating the policies of judicial reform that have been developing in Colombia and in Latin America over the last two decades.

The Constitution and Economic Model in Colombia: Toward a Productive Discussion Between Economy and Right

To support the thesis, the article is organized into five parts. In the first part, the authors propose a typology of the constitutions that permits the identification of the nature of the constitution of 1991 and its effect on economic themes. The second part concentrates on the relationship between the Constitution and the economic models. The third section analyzes these concepts since the point of the view of the Constitution of 1991, trying to find the margins of the economic politics and the constitutional limits. The fourth section offers a practical illustration of the argument between Constitution and economic model through the current debate about the constitutionality of the TLC between Colombia and the United States. The final section presents a brief conclusion.

Courts and social change. How the Constitutional Court changed the forced displacement in Colombia

What role do the courts play in a democracy? What kind of judicial interventions are required to promote public policies that effectively guarantee rights and encourage social change? This book answers these and other questions, parting from of one of the most important cases in comparative constitutionalism: the intervention of the Colombian Constitutional Court to protect the rights of victims of forced displacement. Based on interdisciplinary research, the authors offer a new analytical framework and study the effects of the decision of the Court (T-025 of 2004) and the dynamic monitoring process that has taken place since then.

Law and globalization from below

This book is an unprecedented effort of analyzing the role of rights within the global social justice movement. In the book there are case studies and writings by recognized educator from different parts of the world. The book combines empirical investigation and innovative socio-legal theories on a variety of themes, from indigenous rights to the World Social Forum and global labor rights campaigns.

The new left wing in Latin America

This book is the first attempt at systematic analysis and comparison on the resurgence of left wing in Latin America in recent years. The authors are some of the most outstanding regional social scientists, members of a network of investigation and continental discussion about the new Latin American left wing. The book offers case studies on the leftist parties and movements of Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina. It also includes studies on the most important regional social movements including the indigenous movements, the Ecuadorian and Bolivian peasant movements, the Argentinean ‘piquetero’ movement and the Mexican Zapatista movement. (Co editors: P. Barrett and D. Chavez).

Rights and Society in Latin America

What role do rights play in Latin American society? How can inefficiency of rights, legal pluralism, authoritarianism of expedition and the application of regional rights be explained? What sense do critical legal studies have in Latin America? What themes are relevant to prompt the study of the relation between rights and society in these countries? In this book, a group of prominent lawyers and social scientists from diverse Latin American countries strike up a dialogue and offer innovative and rigorous answers on these and other questions. (Co editor: M. García)

Labor rights in the FTA between Colombia and the United States

This article examines the theoretical debate and the comparative experiences of labor clauses in free commerce treaties and proposes norms for the FTA between Colombia and the United States that efficiently protect labor rights.

(In: Catalina Botero & Andrea Guardo, eds. Economía social de mercado y tratados de libre comercio en Colombia. Fundación Social y Fund. Konrad Adenauer, 2004)

Between the prominence and the routine: A socio-legal analysis of Colombian justice (1980-2005)

This chapter analyzes two apparently paradoxical aspects of the Colombian judicial evolution: on the one hand, its prominence and its enormous political visibility, and on the other its routine and loss of social importance. It describes the context and general evolution of Colombian justice, documents the empirical dynamics of the visible constitutional justice and the routine penal and civil justices.
(In: Lawrence Friedman & Rogelio Pérez Perdomo, eds. Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin Europe and Latin America. Stanford University Press, 2003. Spanish translatio: UNAM, 2004)

The search for alternative economics in times of globalization: the case study of informal recycling in Bogotá

This text examines the potential of supportive economy in the context of globalization, by the way of a case study on the informal recycling cooperatives in Bogotá.

The kaleidoscope of justices in Colombia

In three chapters of this collective work of two volumes directed by B. Santos y M. García, they complete a empirical analysis of the constitutional, penal, and civil Colombian justices.

Critical Studies of right and the theory of judicial decision

This introductory study analyzes one of the most influential contemporary debates about the interpretation of rights and judicial decision, initiated between theorists Herbert Hart and Ronald Dworkin.

Theory of Right and Judicial Decision

This introductory study analyzes one of the most influential contemporary debates on the interpretation of rights and judicial decisions, begun between the theories of Herbert Hart and Ronald Dworkin.

The test of reasonableness and the right to equality

This chapter analyzes the jurisprudential application of the equality clause as a constitutional right and proposes a test of reasonableness and compares this clause with those in American and European jurisprudences.

Is The FTA between the United States and Colombia Constitutional?

En este documento se explica el control constitucional del TLC y se analizan cuatro cláusulas relacionadas con propiedad intelectual, solución de controversias, expropiaciones indirectas y reclamaciones sin infracción, que pueden vulnerar las normas constitucionales sobre el derecho a la salud, el principio de igualdad y la capacidad regulatoria y jurisdiccional del Estado.

The Gentleman’s Club on a Electronic Platform: An Institutional Analysis of the Colombian Stock Exchange

“The stock exchange is a medium power in the economic fight”, wrote Max Weber in 1894 in a pedagogical pamphlet on the theme. In the same way as a war needs “rifles y cannons”, “a strong market” is necessary in times of peace, when “the nations continue their inexorable and inevitable fight by their national existence and economic power” (in Swedberg 1998: 184).

Globalization-Non-governmental Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (David Clark,ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006)

Processes of economic globalization underway since the early 1970s pose new regulatory dilemmas. The mismatch between global economic processes, on the one hand, and national regulations, on the other, creates what Sassen has aptly called a ?regulatory fracture,? stemming from the fact that ?economic processes diverge from the model for which extant regulations were designed? (Sassen 1998: 155). Debates about how to deal with such a regulatory fracture are today at the forefront of law and society research on globalization and have given rise to a host of regulatory experiments around the world. A growing number of sociolegal analyses and institutional experiments emphasize non-governmental approaches to regulation, that is, forms of economic and political coordination in which private organizations ?from corporations to civic associations? take on regulatory tasks that were hitherto reserved to the state. From this perspective, forms of global governance have the potential to solve some of the problems faced by national governments in the global economy.

Colombia-Law and Society Activities Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives

Law and society activities took off in the 1980s and have experienced a boom since the 1990s. They involve numerous university research centers, think tanks and NGOs, and cover such topics as the administration of justice, the legal profession, law and political violence, human rights, and legal pluralism.

Alternative Law Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (David Clark,ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006)

School of legal thought and action that advances the use of law for social transformation. Originated in continental Europe and Latin America in the 1970s, it established itself as one of the leading theoretical and practical loci of criticism of legal positivism in those regions. Given its focus on the links among law, politics, and social context, it has spurred a wide range of scholarly studies and public debates inspired by a sociolegal approach.

Reviews of our nameless war. Transformations of conflict in Colombia

The book collects recent works of the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations (IEPRI) about the changes of armed conflict in Colombia since the 1990s.

Empowered Participatory Governance: An Unexpected Colombian Venture in Public Sociology

It reviews the exchange the participatory democracy between the National University of Colombia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Constitution and Economic Model in Colombia

This text answers two questions: First, what consecrates the Colombian Constitution as an economic model? And second, what are the legal and practical effects of constitutional norms on economic politics?

Global Governance and Labor Rights: Codes of Conduct and Anti-Sweatshop Struggles in Global Apparel Factories in México and Guatemala

Based on ethnographic work of the global clothing factories in Mexico and Guatemala, this article examines both the potential and the limitations of business conduct codes and other forms of rights and governance for the efficient protection of labor rights during times of globalization.

The impact of the re-election on politics and the Colombian institutions

This article analyzes the effects of the introduction of the immediate presidential re-election on the political practice and operation of Colombian institutions.

Globalization, judicial reform and democracy in Colombia and Latin America

This article completes a systematic poll of judicial reform projects in Latin America financed by multilateral agencies and of international cooperation in the last four decades. The article offers a detailed case study on Colombian reform, one of the most ambitious in the last four decades.