Courts that Matter Activists, Judges, and the Politics of Rights Enforcement Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy Series

In Courts that Matter, Sandra Botero tackles a crucial question: Can courts advance socioeconomic rights? Using a rigorous comparative study of the impact of socioeconomic rights rulings in Colombia and Argentina, Botero argues that such decisions can be significantly impactful when courts deploy certain monitoring mechanisms and when legally empowered organizations in civil society are engaged in the outcome. The book includes case studies of landmark rulings on environmental, health, housing, and other socioeconomic rights and charts pathways for broader applicability through comparison with rulings by the Indian Supreme Court. The book demonstrates how Colombian and Argentine highest tribunals have, at times, successfully configured important new political spaces for the effective pursuit of public policy goals, in conjunction and dialogue with other social and political actors. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

1. Introduction; 2. Co-producing judicial impact; 3. Collaborative oversight arenas; 4. Assessing the effects of monitoring mechanisms and legal constituencies; 5. Low impact cases; 6. Collaborative Monitoring in India; 7. Conclusions; 8. Appendices.

Sandra Botero is Associate Professor at Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá, Colombia). She is the co-editor of The Limits of Judicialization: From Progress to Backlash in Latin America (2022).