Central America in the Spotlight: Symposium Introduction

Carlos Arturo Villagrán Sandoval & Edgar Ortiz Romero

University of Melbourne, Universidad Francisco Marroquin & Universidad del Istmo de Guatemala

Central America is a small subregion in the Americas. It was historically composed of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. These countries were the original members of the former Federal Republic of Central American States. Nowadays, Belize, Panama and even the Dominican Republic are sometimes considered to be part of the subregion, due to their membership of different integration and trade regimes (e.g. Sistema de Integración Centroamericana and the United States-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement). The countries in the subregion have an average population of 50 million people, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the Americas. Apart from Belize (where English is the official language), the subregion’s main spoken language is Castilian. The population of the subregion includes an array of Indigenous and tribal groups, and other groups, like the Garifuna. These are countries with long constitutional histories, colonial legacies, and an array of experiences.

However, Central America is a black hole when it comes to comparative constitutional studies. Except for Costa Rica – which is an outlier and is frequently engaged with academically – the countries in the subregion are neglected in academic research. Works on comparative, and even specifically Latin American, constitutional studies and specialized regional handbooks often overlook or disregard these countries. The few that do engage either group them together and provide them as empirical examples in advancing statistics for their normative arguments, or analyze them without properly identifying the distinctive traits that separate them from Mexico and from their southern neighbors. It is common to see that, when it comes to Central America, the resources used to collect information are of a secondary nature. This has occasionally led to mistakes and confusion around characteristics, events, judgments, and institutions of the region. The few Central American authors who are invited to contribute to comparative constitutional studies are typically asked merely to describe the situation in their countries or provide analysis using foreign normative or conceptual methods and theories. 

This symposium will shine light on this neglected subregion, and will do so on the subregion’s own terms. It is hoped that the symposium will highlight to readers of the IACL blog that Central America is quite different from its northern and southern neighbors. Although the subregion shares much with Mexico and South America, it has had very different treatment and experiences post-independence, while geopolitics has directly influenced state building and development in Central American countries. Different to South America, Central America has been a testing ground for many foreign intervention projects. This is also a subregion that has the oldest, most complex and most advanced integration regime in the Americas. It was the first subregion to create an international and supranational court in 1907 (the Central American Court of Justice), and the first to use international verification missions for electoral legitimacy. The countries in the region have applied different forms of truth commissions and national judicial cases for war accountability and crimes against humanity, and have created anticorruption commissions with international organizations to fight impunity. Bitcoin has even been recognized as legal tender in certain countries.

Nevertheless, even with the strong intervention in the subregion, this is a place where elites (colonial families) have had a direct influence on governance. This governance has been based on exclusion and discrimination. The subregion has the highest inequality, poverty and malnutrition rates in the Americas. Elites have usually been comfortable and have maintained dictatorships, which have pushed for restriction of political and civil rights – especially freedom of expression – and for conflict with Indigenous groups, which has led to crimes against humanity and genocide committed by parts of some military forces during the subregion’s dark decades (1970s-1980s). Discrimination and exclusion have also encouraged conservatism, patriarchalism, and a new wave of political and religious militancy. This is a direct result of the US intervention during the dark decades period, which employed Protestantism to counter the Catholic – and specifically Jesuit – liberation theology. The latter ideology was considered by the US as bolstering communism. The new wave of political and religious militancy has led to the election of a new type of populist – even messianic-like – leaders, who in recent times have employed violent measures to repress gangs (maras) and the population overall.

In other words, Central America shows the extremes of what Latin America could become, providing the best- and worst-case scenarios and examples for study. Central America has experience in post-conflict peace negotiation and nation-building, constitutional transitions, fighting corruption, the role and creation of supranational courts and institutions, international assistance, and cooperation for institutional strengthening. However, it also provides examples of new forms of democratic decay: institutional takeover, politicization of the judiciary, misuse of international law and repressive regimes.

Through contributions from authors from the subregion and abroad – written both in Castilian and in English – this symposium shows glimpses of these examples from a subregional perspective as follows.

In the first post, Maria Isabel Carrascosa writes about abortion rights in Central America, and how the subregion is resistant – and even moving in the opposite direction – to the progress on such rights made in Mexico and the south. Maria Isabel shows how newfound religious militancy has pushed politicians to provide new legal punishments for abortion and how religion and secularization has become a new battleground in politics and constitutional design. 

Next, Dennis Emilio Hercules discusses the crisis of representation in democracy. He shows briefly how the representation model, which is purported to be the recognized governance system in the Americas (see the Inter-American Democratic Charter), is in crisis and is manipulated by strong leaders. He shows the lengths these leaders will go to co-opt many of the accountability regimes in their countries (beyond the judiciary) and the need therefore to rethink transparency and accountability for strong executives and congresses under their control.

Erika Saldaña writes about the importance of constitutional education and knowledge for government stability. Focusing on El Salvador, she describes how public knowledge of the Constitution on the part of citizens, and a renovated Constitutional Chamber, promoted the guarantee of human rights and the rule of law. Yet, she shows how constitutional stability is imperiled by a new set of public administration officials loyal to a regime, and the lack of information about attempts at constitutional change. 

Edgar Ortiz writes about the politicization of the selection of high court judge in the subregion. He describes the various methods by which courts have been coopted by executives and other groups with influence in many countries in the subregion. His description shines light on how judicial independence is being dismantled in Central America.

Maria Luisa Acosta writes on the situation of Indigenous peoples on the northern coasts of Nicaragua. She informs about the failure of the state in preventing violence against these groups and shows how this context is reflective of the colonialism and discrimination entrenched in the subregion, even leading to genocide in El Salvador and Guatemala. She writes that although the region has pushed forward on constitutional and international recognition and protection for Indigenous peoples, discrimination has a long-neglected history and continuing presence and reparations though law and courts have been limited in the face of violence.

Carlos Arturo Villagrán writes about the uses and abuses of international law under constitutions in the subregion. He briefly discusses how international law has been used to create a constitutional culture of avoiding constitutional disruption and presidential re-election in the region since 1907, and nowadays the creation of anticorruption missions in various countries aids in state-building and institutional strengthening. However, he also shows how international human rights language and judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have been used to bypass the prohibitions on presidential re-election.

Finally, Jesus Maria Alvarado gives a brief analysis of the distinction between Central and South America. As a South American living in the subregion, he details some reasons why the study of Central American constitutionalism is forgotten or neglected. He provides a historical account stating that – although Central American constitutionalism has closely followed developments from the global north, South America and elsewhere – Central America has created its own brand of constitutionalism in the Americas.  

This symposium ultimately challenges the way comparative constitutional studies is used. It urges comparative scholars and practitioners to avoid methods that force normative or conceptual conclusions on the countries and legal systems, which advance bias or presume certain traits in countries. Such methods also reduce countries and jurisdictions to mere empirical data. And, worst of all, the use of these sorts of methods creates a scenario of intrinsic academic exclusion. As such, the study of Central America, on its own terms, provides a challenge to global theories developed by reference only to the “usual suspect” Latin American countries. 

Carlos Arturo Villagrán Sandoval holds a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, Expert Affiliate at the Constitutional Transformation Network at Melbourne Law School and Associate Researcher at Universidad Rafael Landivar

Edgar Ortiz Romero is a Lecturer at Universidad Francisco Marroquin and Universidad del Istmo de Guatemala 

Suggested citation: Carlos Arturo Villagrán Sandoval and Edgar Ortiz Romero, ‘Central America in the Spotlight: Symposium Introduction’ (13 September 2022) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/central-america/2022/9/14/central-america-in-the-spotlight-symposium-introduction.