Joanna Kusiak

Among the ‘extra-economic means’ that facilitate primitive accumulation, or accumulation by dispossession, the law plays a prominent role. But works on neoliberal urban restructuring rarely engage with concrete legal technologies. Analysing judicial property restitution (‘reprivatization’) in Warsaw, this article grasps the machine of accumulation by dispossession at a moment of faltering and exposes the distinctive legal technologies behind its troubleshooting. It makes three contributions to critical urban studies. First, it demonstrates how judicial systems can steal political conflicts that obstruct the cycle of accumulation by dispossession. It thus introduces the notion of ‘judicial robbery’, a non-legislated expropriation of common property through judicial engineering that simultaneously deprives the public of political agency. Second, it shows that seemingly neutral legal technicalities, usually sheltered from political debate, can become a key locus of urban politics. Third, it examines the agency, scope and spatial patterns of ‘dispossession by restitution’, the term I use for a locally specific form of accumulation by dispossession in Warsaw. Lastly, I raise the question of political struggle against primitive accumulation. Is the judicial robbery reversible? If we can reclaim property, can we also reclaim political conflicts that have been stolen by the law?

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH DOI:10.1111/1468-2427.12827

By

María Fernanda Rodríguez, Nicolás Espejo Yaksic

The IBA assumed the challenge of contributing to a profound and urgent transformation, under the conviction that protecting the rights of children is not only a legal and ethical obligation, but also an essential investment in strengthening the rule of law.

As such, this report highlights existing challenges as well as good practices and proposes a roadmap to advance toward a child-centered justice system, as part of the commitment to leave no one behind within the framework of the 2030 Agenda.

Likewise, the report seeks to be a tool for articulation. A meeting point for governments, the judiciary, ombudsmen, prosecutors, civil society, academia, international organizations, but most importantly, for the voices of children and adolescents.

The preparation of this report involved participants from the justice ecosystem across the region. In line with this collective effort, the report includes a detailed analysis of the drafting process of the Ibero-American Common Rules on Restorative Juvenile Criminal Justice, led by the main justice networks and regional bodies.

The report is divided up into the following sections:

Section 1–Regional Context

Section 2–Access to Justice and the Development Agenda: People-Centered and Child-Centered Justice

Section 3–Principles of Child-Centered Justice: Progress in the Region

Section 4–Vision and Regional Agenda