Originally founded by students and faculty of Yale Law School, the University of Miami School of Law became a member and co-director of SELA in 2021.
Over time SELA has become a professional community of scholars devoted to the communal exploration of new ideas across geographic, disciplinary, and ideological boundaries. SELA also sponsors events throughout the year concerning cutting-edge hemispheric legal topics and controversies.
As a faculty and intellectual life program, SELA allows our faculty to engage with the very best legal scholars in the hemisphere. As part of Miami Law's global and international law program, SELA enriches our faculty expertise in international and comparative law and solidifies our reputation as a leader in hemispheric legal studies
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Conference Information
SELA hosts an annual hemispheric gathering which brings together legal scholars from participating institutions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States to discuss important legal issues in the hemisphere. A specific theme is determined for each year’s seminar and a call for papers is issued. Selected papers are presented and analyzed in discussions among the participants. The papers, along with commentaries by the panel moderators, are then published in a standalone volume.
SELA 2024
University of Miami School of Law Host
Friday, June 7 – Sunday, June 9
Mayfair House Hotel and Garden, Coconut Grove, Miami
Friday, June 7
9:30 – 11:30 am: The Possibilities of Environmental Justice
Florencia Saulino – “Environmental Rights, Collective or Individual?”
Salvador Millaleo – “Fair Energy Transition and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America”
Pablo Rueda-Saiz & Alexandra Huneeus – “Territory-as-Victim in Post-Conflict Colombia”
Commentator: Carol Rose
1:30 – 4:30 pm: Today’s Threats to Political Freedom
Sebastián Guidi & Gilad Abiri – “The Platform Federation”
Catalina Pérez Correa – “Is Democracy Possible in a Militarized State?”
Leonardo Filippini – “University Autonomy, the Constitution, and Democracy”
Adriana Cruz and Tiago Santos – “Racial Citizenship in Brazil and the US”
Commentator: George Priest
6:30 pm: Bo Burt Keynote / Dinner at Hotel
Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Former President of Chile
Saturday, June 8
9:30 am – 12:00 pm: Strategies for Representing the Most Vulnerable
Mauricio del Toro – “Vulnerability and Political Representation in Mexico”
Adilson Moreira – “Thinking as a Black Jurist”
Ana Micaela Alterio – “Translating Political Subjects into Legal Categories”
Madeleine Plasencia – “‘Color-Blind’ Constitutional Interpretation”
Commentator: Roberto Saba
12:00 – 2:00 pm: Lunch
2:00 – 4:00 pm: The Saga of Constitution Making in Chile
Fernando Atria – “Chile’s Double Fracture”
Rodrigo Correa – “The Paradoxical Chilean Constitutional Moment”
Javier Couso – “How Neutral Should a Constitution Be? An Approach from Chile’s Experience”
Veronica Undurraga – “The Role of Expertise: Reflections on the Second Round”
Roberto Gargarella – “The Theory of Constitutional Assemblies: Some Lessons from Latin America”
Commentator: Paula Ahumada
5:00 – 6:30 pm: Democracy Roundtable
No group dinner
Sunday, June 9
9:30 – 11:00 am: Paths to Transition in the Caribbean
Michel Fernandez and Julio Antonio Fernandez – “Cuba”
Irwin Stotzky – “Haiti”
Efrén Rivera – “Puerto Rico”
Commentator: Tracy Robinson
11:30 am – 1:00 pm: The Authority of the Inter-American Human Rights Convention
Daniela Urosa – “Time to Revisit the Status of the United States in the Inter-American System”
Nahuel Maisley – “Two Axes for Conceptualizing the Tension between the Inter-American System and Constitutional Democracies”
Elvira Mendez Chang – “International Obligations v. Constitutional Norms”
Commentator: Renata Bregaglio
1:30 pm: Farewell luncheon / Las despedidas
For information about previous SELA seminars, please visit here.
SELA in the Miami Law News
