Multi-door Courthouses: A Good Idea Badly Administered
In the face of the crisis– and the stikes– in the judiciary, these alternative centers of attention become more important. What are they, what have they done, and how can they improve their services in Colombia.
Read MoreVote Thresholds and Participation (II)
In my past Op-ed I argued for reforming referendum and repeal voting processes to replace the current “participatory threshold” to an “approbatory threshold.”
Read MoreMontaigne, Five Centuries Later
Michel de Montaigne, the great French renaissance thinker, said that humans are not superior to animals and that the idea of evading our own animal condition is stupid and stubborn arrogance.
Read MoreThe Fracking Ex-Minister
There’s something a bit circular and paradoxical in Juan Carlos Echeverry’s defense of fracking. The president of Ecopetrol says today that “we cannot give ourselves the luxury” of not extracting pretroleum using that technique despite the serious risks it poses for our water and environment.
Read MoreQueering Human Rights
While we have seen impressive steps forward in providing protection for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender expressions, we need to ensure that greater coordination of advocacy and standard setting at the local, national, regional, and international levels does not create a homogenizing pressure to a single conception of sexuality or gender.
Read MoreWrits of Constitutional Protection and Judicial Congestion
Levying some type of cost on entities that violate fundamental rights is a better strategy for avoding judicial congestion than recurring proposals asking for more money and more judges for the judiciary.
Read MoreVote Thresholds and Participation
The recognized difficulty in surpassing a vote threshold to referend an eventual peace accord or to impeach a mayor begs the following question: Could it be that the 1991 Constitution made a mistake in establishing thresholds for high-level decisions in Colombia and that moreover are “participation thresholds” and not “approval thresholds”?
Read MoreMy Enemies’ Enemies
Among the many things written after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, I read an article by Michael Walzer that I found to be particularly interesting.
Read MoreA Carlos Gaviria Law
Perhaps there is no better way to pay homage to Carlos Gaviria than through a law. Nothing like the law— which he defended at the risk of his own life like an intellectual, judge, and public figure— to preserve his legacy and example.
Read MoreTalking about Privacy at the UN
It would do us well to have an arena dedicated to established principles, standards and best practices to protect privacy. A warm welcome for the new Rapporteur.
Read MoreThe awarded dogs of Fernando Vallejo
The criticism to Fernando Vallejo for announcing on Saturday, in the acceptance speech of the award from the Guadalajara Book Fair, that he would donate the $150,000 of the award to two Mexican organizations that look after stray dogs just commenced.
Read MoreFree education
If one takes seriously the invitation of students to build a reform from the formula of education as a right and pursuit of equality, free universal proposal does not do very well.
Read MoreMapiripán and the guilt of the State
Some people compensated by the ruling of the Inter-American Court for the slaughter of Mapiripán turned out not to be victims.
Read MoreThe pending task of students
The challenges of the student mobilization with the withdrawal of the bill on education reform.
Read MoreWomen in elections
The poor results of women in the recent elections are not simply a problem of them, but a matter of democracy.
Read MoreMonitoring report of the UN Resolution 1325 in Colombia
Report prepared by the Working Group of Resolution 1325 in Colombia. Comprised of Women National Network (member of The Global Network of Women Peace Builders), Colombian Women Initiative for Peace (IMP), DeJuSticia, League of Displaced Women, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Limpal) National Conference of Afro-Colombian Organizations (CNOA).
Read MoreFrom the student kiss-ins to the new policy
Those who think the student protests are a youth improvisation, or do not have to do with the wave of dissent that extends from Santiago to New York, Cairo or Madrid are wrong.
Read MoreThe reform to the military criminal law
On Tuesday, the Plenary of the Senate approved in second debate the article of the constitutional reform of justice which determines that all actions of the Armed Forces will be judged by military courts.
Read MoreThe silence of the poet
The voluntary silence of a poet can sometimes be more expressive than his verses.
Read MoreConstitutional Court and the right to petition
What is the effect of the Constitutional Court ruling on the right to request governmental information?
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