Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni (born 1940, in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

) is a former

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

politician and judge. He served as a member of the

Supreme Court of Argentina The Supreme Court of Argentina (), officially known as the Supreme Court of Justice of the Argentine Nation (, CSJN), is the highest court of law of the Argentine Republic. It was inaugurated on 15 January 1863. During much of the 20th century ...

from 2003 until 2015, when he resigned due to age restrictions to hold the position. He subsequently served in the

Inter-American Court of Human Rights The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court H.R.) is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a human r ...

from 2016 to 2022.

Academic career

Zaffaroni holds a Ph.D. in Law and Social Sciences from Universidad Nacional del Litoral, awarded in 1964. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Law at the

Universidad de Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821, the UBA has educa ...

. He serves as President of the Advisory Committee of the ''Instituto de Políticas Públicas'' (Public Policy Institute) and Vice President of the Scientific Committee of the International Association of Penal Law. He has been awarded

OEA Oea (; ) was an ancient city in present-day Tripoli, Libya. It was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and later became a Roman–Berber colony. As part of the Roman Africa Nova province, Oea and surrounding Tripolitania wer ...

and Max Planck Stiftung fellowships and won the Stockholm Prize in Criminology in 2009. He holds honorary degrees from universities in Latin America, Spain, and Italy.

Legal career

Zaffaroni served two decades on the Federal Penal Court of Buenos Aires City, from 1975 to 1990. Then he was the General Director of the ''Instituto Latinoamericano de Prevención del Delito'', a branch of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. He represented the

Front for a Country in Solidarity The Front for a Country in Solidarity ( or ) was a center-left political coalition in Argentina. Its leading figures were José Octavio Bordón, Carlos "Chacho" Álvarez and Graciela Fernández Meijide. History The coalition was formed in 19 ...

in the assembly that drew up the

1994 reform of the Argentine Constitution The 1994 amendment to the Constitution of Argentina was approved on 22 August 1994 by a Constitutional Assembly that met in the twin cities of Santa Fe and Paraná. The calling for elections for the Constitutional Convention and the main issues ...

. He was a member of the

Chamber of Representatives in 1997, and Director of the National Institute Against Discrimination during 2000-2001. Zaffaroni has been called a ''garantista'', meaning a holder of a certain type of criminal law abolitionist position. He was criticized because of his former open abolitionism (easily recognizable in his 1989 book ''En busca de las penas perdidas''), from which he later distanced himself and now he identifies with what he calls "reductive functionalism," that is an extreme form of criminal minimalism tending to abolitionism. He endorses what he names "agnostic theory of punishment," implying no theory is sufficient to justify the existence of prisons. He is close to

critical criminology Critical criminology applies critical theory to criminology. Critical criminology examines the genesis of crime and the nature of justice in relation to power, privilege, and social status. These include factors such as class, race, gender, a ...

and has criticized the War on Drugs. In 1993, Zaffaroni was elected to the 1994 Constitutional Assembly for the Frepaso party. In 1997, he was elected as deputy in the City of Buenos Aires for the Frepaso party. In 2000, he was assigned by then President Fernando de la Rua as intervenor of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI). In 2003, he was nominated to the Argentine Supreme Court by President Nestor Kirchner.

Writings

Zaffaroni has drafted penal legislation for Argentina (1991),

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

(1991), and

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

(1992). He has written 25 books, including ''Manual de Derecho Penal'', ''Tratado de Derecho Penal'' in five volumes, ''En busca de las penas perdidas'' and ''Estructuras judiciales''. He co-authored ''Derecho Penal: General'' with Alejandro Slokar and Alejandro Alagia. He has published extensively in scholarly journals. He is a member of the

Crimes Against Humanity Initiative The Crimes Against Humanity Initiative is a rule of law research and advocacy project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Started in 2008 by Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, the Initiative has as its goals the study of the need for a comp ...

Advisory Council, a project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at

Washington University School of Law The Washington University School of Law (WashU Law) is the law school of Washington University in St. Louis, a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1867, it is the oldest continuously operating law school west of the ...

in St. Louis to establish the world’s first treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

Controversies

A NGO called "La Alameda" brought a lawsuit against Zaffaroni on the basis of him having 6 apartments where prostitution was illegally practiced. He consistently denied all charges, and the trial was closed with no consequences to the judge. He expressed his feelings about Mauricio Macri administration on several occasions and wished "it come to an end as soon as possible."Eugenio Zaffaroni, sobre el Gobierno: "Quisiera que se fuera lo antes posible"
''Infobae'', Retrieved 28 February 2018

Bibliography

* MARTINS JÚNIOR, Fernando Nogueira. Penalistica Marginalia: Considerações sobre os fundamentos sociológico- políticos da dogmática de Eugênio Raul Zaffaroni in Revista do CAAP, n. 1, v. XVII, Belo Horizonte, 2012, pp. 79–90.

References

External links

Homenaje al jurista Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni - de www.iuspenalismo.com.ar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raul 1940 births Living people Lawyers from Buenos Aires Argentine people of Italian descent 21st-century Argentine judges 20th-century Argentine judges Supreme Court of Argentina justices Front for a Country in Solidarity politicians