“Unas por otras”: lessons from collaborative rights enforcement efforts by the Colombian, Argentinean and Indian highest courts

• In Event: The cost of rights. From constitutionalization to enjoyment of human rights

Abstract

Under what conditions can courts in the global south produce political and social change? What are the costs and benefits of embarking on collaborative efforts to monitor the judicial enforcement of socioeconomic rights? To shed light on these questions, I study the aftermath of select landmark socioeconomic rights rulings in Colombia, Argentina and India, focusing on the novel and understudied court-promoted oversight mechanisms (like public hearings and follow-up commissions) that some apex courts deploy. I argue that the use of court-promoted oversight mechanisms can create institutional spaces, which I refer to as collaborative oversight arenas, where the court, elected leaders, private actors and civil society agents converge to address issues. The findings show that courts can be most consequential when they act in concert with other actors to create participatory political spaces for ongoing discussion and engagement with regards to rights. At the same time, collaborative monitoring is not a silver bullet: it can also have significant political and social costs. On the one hand, these spaces reproduce and may amplify corruption. On the other, sustaining monitoring over the long run can create roadblocks and subject courts to tremendous pressure, as monitoring hinges too much on individual judicial leadership. This paper presents insights from comparative case studies of selected rulings on environmental, health and right to food issues decided by the highest courts in Colombia, Argentina and India.

Author

• Sandra Botero, Universidad del Rosario