The internationalization of criminal justice reform: The emergence of OAS criminal justice organs and the production of a new development expertise (1990s-2000)

HATHAZY, PAUL

San Francisco

Congreso; Latin American Studies Association Congress; 2022

Latin American Studies Association

This presentation reconstructs the emergence of Organization of American States´ organs specialized in criminal justice in the 1990s. It traces the emergence of the OAS´s Justice Studies Center of the Americas back to the convergence of the strategies of Northern countries agents combined with the strategies of Latin American government actors and experts eager to participate in the OAS organs to regionalizing their know-how and expertise. Through the analysis of public documents and interviews with national and international organizations´ agents I show how the OAS organ continue the original strategies of US state agents, combined with those of its allied Latin American experts and government agents leading to the production of a generalized Inter-American consensus and expertise on criminal justice reform.