This essay, part history of ideas and part history of international relations, examines Brazil's relationship with Latin America in historical perspective. For more than a century after independence, neither Spanish American intellectuals nor Spanish American governments considered Brazil part of ‘América Latina’. For their part, Brazilian intellectuals and Brazilian governments only had eyes for Europe and increasingly, after 1889, the United States, except for a strong interest in the Río de la Plata. When, especially during the Cold War, the United States, and by extension the rest of the world, began to regard and treat Brazil as part of ‘Latin America’, Brazilian governments and Brazilian intellectuals, apart from some on the Left, still did not think of Brazil as an integral part of the region. Since the end of the Cold War, however, Brazil has for the first time pursued a policy of engagement with its neighbours – in South America.

In a context of continuing armed conflict, a comprehensive scheme of transitional justice has been developed in Colombia since 2005 through the Law of Justice and Peace, with the aim of achieving peace with one of the armed actors in the conflict, the paramilitary groups. The clear link between the demobilisation of illegal armed groups and the rights of the victims is the main feature of the Colombian process. This article provides a systematic review of the implementation of the law, focusing on the institutions, mechanisms and procedures put in place to fulfil its goals. Emphasis is given to the legal category of ‘victim’, victims' rights and victim reparation measures. By exploring how the scheme works in principle and in practice, we are able to assess the prospects for victims' rights in Colombia today.

The differing perspectives and actions of US government, business and labour towards the Guatemalan government and Guatemalan trade unionists themselves in the half-decade or so following the overthrow of the Arbenz administration in 1954 are the focus of this study. Few areas were more important to the US project for Guatemala following the Castillo Armas invasion than helping the Guatemalans to create a ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ labour movement – and few areas would prove more frustrating. Part of the problem was the intransigent stance of Guatemalan elites. An additional challenge was strong opposition from the major US-based companies operating in Guatemala, most notably the United Fruit Company and its affiliates. This work contests interpretations that regard US policy towards countries like Guatemala at the time as simply beholden to business interests or as seeking domination. Rather, as Washington's interest in the transition diminished, officials in the US embassy and representatives of US labour in Guatemala were left isolated, unable to fulfil their vision for a democratic labour movement in the teeth of such opposition.

During the mid- to late 1930s, rural activism surged in the coffee-growing region of southern Chiapas and north-western Guatemala. This article examines the causes and impacts of sustained campesino protests at the grassroots level on the Mexican side of the border. The porous border between the two nations hindered the development of centralised power networks that prevailed in other parts of Chiapas. Campesinos and reformist federal government officials such as teachers and agrarian engineers built alliances that challenged the power of the coffee growers. This article explores the process of negotiation that occurred among campesinos, federal bureaucrats, regional authorities and elite coffee planters in order both to implement and to challenge agrarian reform.

This paper focuses on the similarities and differences between contemporary urban organisation and that of the 1960s in Guatemala City and other Latin American cities, mainly using data taken from a re-study of low-income neighbourhoods in Guatemala City. It looks at the impact of sharper patterns of residential segregation, changes in migration patterns, rising levels of crime and violence, and the increase in the relationships of the urban poor with external actors, such as governments and NGOs. Severe inequality persists, but is mediated by an improvement in living standards, by the range of consumer goods accessible to the poor, and by community- and family-based adaptation.