ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to reflect the richness and frequent novelty of constitutional justice developments in Latin America, and identify what are clearly distinctive regional trends, such as the combination of judicial review models at the level of institutional design, the importance apex courts have placed on social communication and on creating direct bonds with the citizenry, the salience of inter-court interaction and judicial dialog, or the vitality of the debate about the social impact of judicial action. It privileges analysis of the courts’ institutional structure and performance over causal inquiry bound on explaining why courts behave as they do. It portrays the generals of the institutional and procedural structures that organize Latin American courts performance, and identify traits that capture the many roles and functions they display in contemporary Latin American democracies. The focus is placed on developments in Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, with occasional references to other countries.
