2026 CONFERENCE ON PEOPLE-CENTERED JUSTICE AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN LATIN AMERICA

September 2026. UAI, Errazuriz Campus.

VIEW PROGRAM

2026 CONFERENCE ON PEOPLE-CENTERED JUSTICE AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN LATIN AMERICA

When and where?

September 4, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
3485 Presidente Errázuriz Ave., Las Condes.

Registration

Partner hotels

Find the list of partner hotels and rates here.

Contact

To learn more or ask questions, write to the People-Centered Justice Lab team at: [email protected].

This annual conference seeks to create a dynamic space for dialogue and collaboration among experts, researchers, scholars, and key stakeholders committed to advancing access to justice in the region through evidence-based policies and practices.

This gathering aims to share innovative experiences, evidence-based practices, and transformative strategies that place people at the center of justice systems. The conference seeks to strengthen a regional network and promote a shared effort to ensure equitable, effective, and sustainable access to justice for all communities across Latin America.

Panels

Panel 1: Evidence-based research on Access to Justice in Latin-America. Methods and challenges

This panel will address the crucial role of empirical research in understanding and improving access to justice in Latin America, highlighting both methodological advances and persistent challenges in the production and use of evidence. Through the exchange of experiences from region and abroad, the panel will explore quantitative and qualitative approaches, legal needs surveys in the region, strategies for data collection in complex institutional contexts, and common limitations such as the lack of standardized information, territorial fragmentation, and gaps in technical capacity. It will emphasize how rigorous evidence can guide public decision-making, reveal structural inequalities, and support more effective interventions.

Panel 2: Innovation and Technology to improve Access to Justice

This panel will explore how innovation and technology can transform justice systems to become more accessible, efficient, and people-centered across Latin America. It will provide a common framework for understanding the role of digital tools and technological solutions in reducing barriers to justice, while addressing challenges such as inequality, limited resources, and institutional capacity. Drawing on empirically oriented research and practical experiences, the discussion will highlight successful initiatives, identify gaps, and propose actionable strategies to leverage technology for inclusive and sustainable improvements in access to justice.

Panel 3: Community based access to justice experiences in Latin-America

This panel will showcase community-driven initiatives aimed to expand access to justice in diverse contexts across Latin America. It will highlight how local actors, grassroots organizations, and participatory approaches can bridge gaps between formal justice systems and the needs of different group of populations in specific contexts, such as in climate and natural disaster in the region. Through the exchange of empirical evidence and practical experiences, the discussion will identify lessons learned, innovative practices, and policy implications for strengthening people-centered justice at the community level.

Panel 4: Access to Justice for specific vulnerable groups of population in the Latin-American context

This panel will focus on the unique challenges faced by vulnerable groups—such as women, children, indigenous communities, migrants, and persons with disabilities—in accessing justice within Latin America. It will provide a space to examine structural barriers, discriminatory practices, and socio-economic factors that limit equal access to justice. Through empirically grounded research and practical experiences, the discussion will highlight innovative approaches and policy solutions aimed at ensuring that justice systems respond effectively to the needs of these populations, promoting inclusion and equity across the region.

Panel 5: Policy Perspectives on People-Centered Justice in Latin America

This panel will explore the ways in which research and data are being used to design evidence-based policies on people-centered access to justice in Latin America. Panelists will discuss both cross-cutting efforts to promote people-centered justice in the region, as well as the use of evidence and data to highlight the justice needs of specific populations, such as women and children.

Speakers

Ana Aguilar

Mexican lawyer with a master's degree and specialization in Human Rights and doctoral studies in Social and Political Sciences. She is certified as a trainer in criminal procedure reform and holds diplomas in gender perspective, climate change and human rights, criminal analysis, and money laundering prevention and enforcement. She has more than twenty years of experience implementing and consolidating criminal procedure reforms in Mexico and Latin America. She has participated in various projects, social movements, and academic research groups to strengthen the juvenile justice system, criminal defense, alternatives to incarceration, strategic criminal prosecution, and judicial management. She has taught human rights, with an emphasis on due process, at various universities and judicial schools.

María Cecilia de Araujo

Asperti Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School (FGV Direito SP). Coordinator of the Access to Justice, Civil Procedure and dispute resolution center at FGV (NAJUPMESC FGV).

Antonia Berríos

She is a lawyer from Universidad de Chile and holds an LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is General Coordinator of FIMA NGO, a Chilean environmental justice organization, where she leads its work in public interest litigation and legal support for communities affected by socio-environmental conflicts. She teaches environmental law and regulation at the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of Universidad de Chile and at the Law School of Universidad Diego Portales. Her work focuses on strengthening Chile's environmental governance framework and on the conditions that make access to environmental justice meaningful for communities and civil society organizations.

Matthew Burnett

Director of Research and Programs for the Access to Justice Research Initiative at the American Bar Foundation (ABF), visiting scholar for Justice Futures at Arizona State University, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to serving in these roles, Matthew was Senior Policy Officer at Open Society Foundations (OSF), where he worked to advance access to justice and legal empowerment through research, advocacy, and grantmaking in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the United States. Earlier in his career he co-founded and led the Immigration Advocates Network and served as law clerk to Justice Z.M. Yacoob of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Matthew’s writing on access to justice and legal empowerment has appeared in more than 30 publications, and he has given more than 100 presentations and workshops around the world. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, the World Bank, and the International Development Research Centre. He serves as an advisor to the National Center for Access to Justice and is co-founder, with Rebecca Sandefur, of Frontline Justice and the Justice Worker Lab.

Inara Flora Cipriano Firmino

Ph.D. in Constitutional Law at PUC in Rio de Janeiro and M.A. in Law at the University of São Paulo (FDRP/USP). Researcher in Law and Black Studies.

Nicolás Espejo

Professor of Law at Tec de Monterrey (Mexico City), Guest Lecturer in Law, Leiden University (Netherlands), and President of Acción Iberoamericana por el Acceso a la Justicia Centrada en la Niñez (Ibero-American Action for Child-Centered Access to Justice).

Ximena Gauché Marchetti

Lawyer from Universidad de Concepción. Doctor of Law from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Diploma in Human Rights Education from the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. Full Professor at the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of Universidad de Concepción.

Director of the FONDEF applied research projects "Justice and Gender" (2018–2023) and of the FONDECYT Regular project "Justice, Gender and Childhood" (2025–2027).

She has served as chair of the Community Engagement Commission of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (2024–2025); as an external legal advisor to the Judiciary on the Council of the Judicial Studies Institute (2021–2024); as an academic advisor to Sociedad Civil de la Niñez (2023–2025); as a board member of the Chilean Society of International Law (2017–2021); as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; as a rapporteur for the Judicial Academy of Chile; and as an international consultant on human rights education, access to justice, gender, childhood, and human rights.

Luciana Gross Cunha

Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School (FGV Direito SP). Coordinator of the Access to Justice, Civil Procedure, and dispute resolution center at FGV (NAJUPMESC FGV).

Jeanne Hersant

PhD in Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS Paris). She is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she teaches the undergraduate courses Access to Justice and Research Logics for Social Intervention, as well as Current Debates in Sociological Theory at the graduate level (Master's in Social Work).

She serves as Deputy Director and researcher of the ANID Exploración project "Understanding (un)successful implementation of innovative justice mechanisms in Chilean criminal proceedings" (2025–2029). Her work has recently been published in The Routledge International Handbook of Criminal Justice Social Work and in the Revista Chilena de Derecho y Ciencia Política.

Ricardo Lillo

Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Public Interest Law and Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Academic Director of the People-Centered Justice Laboratory, an expert in Empirical Legal Studies, and a member of the Law and Society Association of the United States. He has served as a consultant to various international organizations on technology and justice issues, including the Justice Studies Center of the Americas of the Organization of American States and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He directs several undergraduate and graduate training programs, including at the Judicial Academy of Chile, related to innovation and technology methodologies. His main research areas are procedural law, judicial reform, and the functioning of the justice system. In particular, his work focuses on civil access to justice, due process, and the use of information and communication technologies in justice systems. Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D) y Master of Laws (LL.M) in Public Interest Law and Policy, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Fernando Marani

Program Director for Justice, Inclusion and Equality at the New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, within the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies initiative. He also leads the Secretariat to two global platforms: the Justice Action Coalition and the Global Alliance against Inequality, working at the intersection of justice, inequality, and global governance as enabling foundations for sustainable development.

Before joining NYU, Fernando served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Legal Adviser to four consecutive Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly, providing strategic, legal, and political guidance on multilateral negotiations, institutional reform, and the management of intergovernmental processes at the highest level.

A career diplomat from Argentina for over two decades, he represented his country at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the Embassy in the Netherlands, the International Court of Justice, as well as the OECD, the G20, and other international organizations and global meetings. He has chaired multiple international forums, including the Special Commission of the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the Group of Friends of the International Criminal Court.

Fernando holds a Juris Doctor from the National University of Litoral in Argentina and completed advanced diplomatic training at Argentina's National Foreign Service Institute and Brazil's Rio Branco Institute.

Gustavo Mauriño

Lawyer. Professor of Law at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and Torcuato Di Tella University (UTDT). Researcher in Constitutional Theory, Human Rights, and Access to Justice. Director of the Latin American School of Community Legal Practice and Legal Activism. He formerly served as National Director of Access to Justice in Argentina.

Avertano Messias Klautau

Substitute Labor Judge at the Regional Labor Court of the 8th Region (TRT-8); member of the Regional Commission on Mobile Justice and Digital Inclusion; Specialist in Tax Law from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA); Specialist in Labor Law and Labor Procedure from the University of the Amazon (UNAMA); Master's candidate in Human Rights at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA).

María Fernanda Rodríguez

She is a lawyer and senior specialist in justice reform, human rights, and international cooperation. She currently serves as Technical Secretary of the Ibero-American Alliance for Access to Justice and as a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University (NYU-CIC).

With over twenty-five years of professional experience, she has held senior positions within Argentina’s Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, including Secretary of Justice and Under-Secretary for Access to Justice, where she led key reforms to strengthen institutional responses to gender-based violence, human trafficking, and access to justice for vulnerable populations.

She has served as Sherpa to the Co-Presidency of the Pathfinders Working Group on Justice for Sustainable Development Goal 16, and has acted as an expert consultant for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Organization of American States (OAS) on justice, governance, and victim protection frameworks.
Her publications include works on people-centred justice, gender equality, and institutional reform, such as An Ibero-American Approach to Child-Centred Justice (2025) and reports on asset recovery and compensation for victims of human trafficking.

María Fernanda holds a Law Degree from the University of Buenos Aires and a Diploma in Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law from the American University Washington College of Law. She has also completed executive studies as a Senior Fellow at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation

Mariana Sánchez Caparrós

Doctor of Juridical Science, Master's in Administrative Law, and lawyer. She serves as Deputy Director of IALAB (the Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Laboratory of the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires), where she leads research projects and the design and implementation of artificial intelligence solutions for the public sector and the justice system. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels at various universities across Latin America and is the author of the book Inteligencia Artificial y Discriminación (Artificial Intelligence and Discrimination). She is a member of UNESCO's Network of Experts on Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law.

Her work specializes in artificial intelligence governance, the ethical and interdisciplinary design of AI solutions for public organizations, the regulation of emerging technologies, and the digital transformation of the State. She has led and participated in AI implementation projects for public agencies in Argentina and the region, promoting adoption models that combine innovation, risk management, protection of fundamental rights, and international governance standards.

Rebecca L. Sandefur

Director of the Access to Justice Research Initiative. She joined the American Bar Foundation in 2010 to found and lead the ABF’s Access to Justice Research Initiative. She continues to head this initiative as Faculty Fellow and is also Professor in and Director of the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.

She investigates access to civil justice from every angle—from how legal services are delivered and consumed, to how civil legal aid is organized around the nation, to the role of pro bono, to the relative efficacy of lawyers, nonlawyers, and digital tools as advisers and representatives, to how ordinary people think about their justice problems and try to resolve them.

Her public service includes her appointment by the Supreme Court of Utah to the state’s Office of Legal Services Innovation and her appointment by the Supreme Court of Arizona to the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice.

In 2013, Sandefur was The Hague Visiting Chair in the Rule of Law. In 2015, she was named Champion of Justice by the National Center for Access to Justice. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on inequality and access to justice. In 2020, she was awarded the Warren E. Burger Award by the National Center for State Courts. In 2026, ABA Journal named her a “Legal Rebel” for her pioneering research into America’s access to justice crisis and for her work in cofounding Frontline Justice, a national, nonpartisan organization dedicated to addressing the US civil justice crisis by supporting a movement of community justice workers.

Sandefur was born in and spent her early years in Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation. Directora de la Iniciativa de Investigación sobre Acceso a la Justicia. Se incorporó a la American Bar Foundation en 2010 para fundar y dirigir la Iniciativa de Investigación sobre Acceso a la Justicia de la ABF. Continúa liderando esta iniciativa como Faculty Fellow y es también Profesora y Directora de la Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics en Arizona State University.

Andressa Maria Scorza dos Ramos

PhD Candidate and M.Sc. in Law at the University of São Paulo (USP) and MBA in Data Science and Analytics (USP/ESALQ). Lawyer and researcher.

María José del Solar

A lawyer from the University of Tarapacá, she holds a Master's degree in Criminology and Citizen Security Management from the University of Chile. She has worked as a researcher on issues related to justice systems in Latin America, human rights and the use of force, and citizen security. Currently, she serves as research coordinator at CESC.

She also holds diplomas in Women and Criminal Justice (University of Chile), Linguistics and Indigenous Cultures (University of Chile), and Equality and Non-Discrimination (University of Buenos Aires).

Paula Torres

Lawyer, with a master's degree in mediation and negotiation. She began her professional career in the legal field as a legal clerk. Subsequently, she joined the Judicial Assistance Corporation (CAJ), where she began as a lawyer at the Social Legal Assistance Center of Maipú, and then worked on cases of high judicial complexity as a litigation lawyer at the Santiago Litigation Office.

Later, she assumed several strategic, cross-cutting roles in the institution, as technical coordinator and deputy head of the Department of Evaluation and Control. Her leadership stands out for having directed the two large institutional macro-zones in the capital, serving as deputy regional director of the Southern Metropolitan Regional Directorate and, later, as head of the Northern Metropolitan Regional Directorate, since 2017.

With this trajectory, since May 2026, she has served as General Director (acting) of the Judicial Assistance Corporation of the Metropolitan Region.

Ester Valenzuela

She is an attorney at law and holds a master’s degree in child, Adolescent and Family Rights from Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. She has more than twenty years of experience in research, teaching, and technical assistance to governments and to national and international organizations, focused on the assessment of legal frameworks, public policies, and programs for the comprehensive protection of the rights of children and adolescents.

She is a co-founder of the La Voz del Niño Program, the first initiative in Chile in specialized defense with an interdisciplinary approach, within which she has practiced for more than a decade as a lawyer for children and adolescents in protection proceedings. Building on that practice, she has led the development of the Standards of Legal Representation and Specialized Defense of Children and Adolescents and of the Guidelines for the Assessment and Determination of the Best Interests of the Child in judicial and administrative proceedings.

She has served as an adviser in legislative reform processes in Chile and in other countries of the region, and as an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Patricia Villa Berger

Lawyer from the Escuela Libre de Derecho and Doctor of Law from Chicago-Kent College of Law, with doctoral research on the implementation of technology in legal systems, particularly artificial intelligence. She is a consultant in legal operations and legaltech, carrying out projects with judiciaries, public institutions, and law firms. She has been a member of the Technology Advisory Council of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary and of the e-Justice Expert Group of the Federal Judicial Council. She currently collaborates with CEJA (Justice Studies Center of the Americas) as an expert consultant on digital justice. She has published on AI design for the administration of justice, algorithmic bias in criminal sentencing, and process automation. She coordinates the Diploma in Legal Innovation and Technology at the Escuela Libre de Derecho.

2026 CONFERENCE ON PEOPLE-CENTERED JUSTICE AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN LATIN AMERICA

September 2026. UAI, Errazuriz Campus.

When and where?

Registration

Partner hotels

Contact

Panels

Panel 1: Evidence-based research on Access to Justice in Latin-America. Methods and challenges

Panel 2: Innovation and Technology to improve Access to Justice

Panel 3: Community based access to justice experiences in Latin-America

Panel 4: Access to Justice for specific vulnerable groups of population in the Latin-American context

Panel 5: Policy Perspectives on People-Centered Justice in Latin America

Speakers

Ana Aguilar

María Cecilia de Araujo

Antonia Berríos

Matthew Burnett

Inara Flora Cipriano Firmino

Nicolás Espejo

Ximena Gauché Marchetti

Luciana Gross Cunha

Jeanne Hersant

Ricardo Lillo

Fernando Marani

Gustavo Mauriño

Avertano Messias Klautau

María Fernanda Rodríguez

Mariana Sánchez Caparrós

Rebecca L. Sandefur

Andressa Maria Scorza dos Ramos

María José del Solar

Paula Torres

Ester Valenzuela

Patricia Villa Berger

Organized by

Sponsors

Panel 1: Evidence-based research on Access to Justice in Latin-America. Methods and challenges

Panel 2: Innovation and Technology to improve Access to Justice

Panel 3: Community based access to justice experiences in Latin-America

Panel 4: Access to Justice for specific vulnerable groups of population in the Latin-American context

Panel 5: Policy Perspectives on People-Centered Justice in Latin America

Ana Aguilar

María Cecilia de Araujo

Antonia Berríos

Matthew Burnett

Inara Flora Cipriano Firmino

Nicolás Espejo

Ximena Gauché Marchetti

Luciana Gross Cunha

Jeanne Hersant

Ricardo Lillo

Fernando Marani

Gustavo Mauriño

Avertano Messias Klautau

María Fernanda Rodríguez

Mariana Sánchez Caparrós

Rebecca L. Sandefur

Andressa Maria Scorza dos Ramos

María José del Solar

Paula Torres

Ester Valenzuela

Patricia Villa Berger