Latin American racial equality law as criminal law

ABSTRACT

After years of struggle for visibility, recognition, and equality in Latin America, Afro-descendants have garnered a number of anti-discrimination law enactments. These legal gains range from multi-cultural constitutional recognition, collective land titles, affirmative action programs and criminal sanctions on discrimination. Most pervasive across the region has been the deployment of anti-discrimination criminal law sanctions. This entry will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the criminal law model for addressing Afro-Latin American discrimination by focusing on a number of case examples from various countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Racial discrimination
• law
• Afro-descendants
• Blacks
• anti-discrimination
• criminal

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Notes on contributors

Tanya Katerí Hernández

Tanya Katerí Hernández is the Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. She is an internationally recognized comparative race law expert and Fulbright Scholar. Her recent publications include Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law and the New Civil Rights Response (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Racial Discrimination, and Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination (New York University Press, 2018).