In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the product of twenty years of working on and thinking about judicial reform in Latin America and occasionally elsewhere. As the author, I owe an enormous debt to a list of individuals so long it would constitute a chapter in itself. They are the people who have taught me; worked with me and sometimes for me; shared their experiences and opinions; offered their data, documents, and written thoughts for my consideration; apprised me of other work relevant to my own ponderings; opened their courts and ofWces so I could make my own observations; invited me to conferences and workshops as a participant or speaker; encouraged me to write; reviewed and criticized this and other manuscripts; tolerated my interviews and occasionally impertinent questions; and sometimes frustrated me to the point of having to get my ideas down on paper. The present book in fact was inspired by a series of debates among friends. Our inability to reach agreement on a few Wne points of reform produced the Wrst and second chapters, and from there it grew. Thus, to Juan Enrique and Alberto I owe a debt of which they may have been completely unaware. For the rest, a list would not sufWce and in any event, would inevitably run the risk of signiWcant exclusions. Those who have put their own ideas on paper or into Internet exchanges are recognized in the references and footnotes. For the numerous others, both advocates and opponents of the reforms, I apologize for the absence of a more explicit acknowledgment, but it was just not humanly possible. As for my two principal employers, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank, I should recognize that, wittingly or not, they provided the opportunity for a twenty-year education on the theme but that they are not responsible for what I made of it or what is written here. I thank Sandy Thatcher of Penn State University Press for having taken the trouble to review this project; Joseph Parsons, who did the massive copyediting; Michael Dodson and Keith Rosenn for providing useful critiques; and Anne Pillay for typing up the Wnal manuscript. ...

Share