9 - Foreign Judges in International Corruption Missions in Central America

Summary

This chapter examines the role of foreign judges in the international mission to support the fight against corruption and impunity in Honduras ('MACCIH'), as conceived on paper and implemented in practice. It identifies two elements, aside from adjudication, of the role of the foreign judge in the international mission – as a diplomatic interlocutor to promote a new vision of the judiciary, and as an accountability mechanism for the international mission itself. The Honduran mission against corruption, and the use of foreign judges within it, can be understood in light of the receptiveness, in the wider Central American region, to international intervention in order to strengthen democracy, constitutionalism and human rights. However, the recent history of such international interventions raises questions about how the reputation and expertise of foreign judges and other foreign personnel can lend legitimacy to domestic institutions where corruption is rampant and where they face backlash from powerful domestic actors in the name of sovereignty.