The political science literature on legal institutions in Latin America, and on judicial politics in particular, has grown dramatically since the turn of the twenty-first century. Much of that scholarship focuses on top-down dynamics such as judicial reform; the delegation of judicial power; judicial independence, authority, and decision making; and compliance with court rulings. Scholars have also begun to examine legal institutions other than high courts, such as public prosecutor’s offices (PPOs); Lesley McAllister’s book on Brazil’s PPO (Making Law Matter, 2008) is an excellent example. Bottom-up dynamics have been less emphasized. To be sure, scholars have begun to study access to justice in Latin America, considering the challenges of transitional justice in the wake of the region’s last authoritarian period, as well as the range of rights now at citizens’ disposal and the legal mechanisms through which they can access courts (e.g., the amparo and tutela). However, little scholarship has focused closely on citizen-initiated litigation and the legal actors it entails (with important exceptions, such as work by Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo). In that context, Verónica Michel’s new book, which considers how citizens can use new forms of criminal litigation to access justice when the state fails to provide it, is a breath of fresh air.

As Michel notes, when the state agency charged with investigating and prosecuting crimes, the PPO, fails to do so—an outcome far too typical in Latin America—society suffers in two ways. First, victims’ human right to a judicial remedy is violated. Second, when investigative or prosecutorial failures prevent justice from prevailing, impunity is reinforced (pp. 2–4). Increasingly, however, citizens can activate a little-known legal mechanism to address this type of state failure: the right to private prosecution. This right, which formed part of criminal procedure law in 14 of 17 Latin American countries at the time Michel wrote, allows some victims (variously defined and sometimes including relevant nongovernmental organizations [NGOs]) to initiate or participate, through representation by a lawyer, in criminal proceedings in murder cases that the state initially fails to prosecute (pp. 2–10). Although the process through which this “private prosecutor” is selected and appointed is not entirely clear, the possible impact of this legal mechanism is patent: by directly involving the victim and her interests in criminal investigation and prosecution (to which the state and the defendant are typically the only parties), this legal innovation can significantly affect criminal proceedings and their outcomes.

Michel analyzes this phenomenon in the context of homicide cases (in which the state has a clear obligation to investigate) in Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico (in the state of Chihuahua in particular). She analyzes more than 900 criminal cases including both “ordinary homicide cases” (N = 520) and “human rights cases” (when a state agent committed the homicide, N = 383; p. 10). Michel explores how and when citizens can use private prosecution to push states to investigate and prosecute murder cases, what role private prosecution plays when they do so (in particular, whether it instigates extra-systemic review of prosecutorial decisions, thus enhancing accountability), and how it affects citizens’ access to justice (p. 4). The outcome to be explained is thus simultaneously critically important and challenging to conceptualize, operationalize, and precisely measure. To answer her questions, Michel generates multiple types of data, conducting almost 100 interviews with those who administer and use the judicial system, engaging in archival research, and observing hearings—as well as collecting data from government agencies and NGOs that focus on these issues (p. 10).

It is difficult to discern from the introduction and the empirical chapters exactly how Michel is drawing inferences from comparison and what method she is using to do so. She mentions engaging in within-country analysis (comparing private prosecution in ordinary murder cases across judicial districts and in human rights murder cases over time) using process tracing (p. 10). However, several of the potential explanatory factors that she identifies—the form that private prosecution can take (“auxiliary” in Mexico versus “autonomous” in Chile and Guatemala) (pp. 6–7) and the strength and prerogatives of state institutions (i.e., whether impunity results from “poor” or “weak” institutions, which she suggests mark Guatemala and Mexico, respectively, or a lack of political will, as in Chile; p. 5)—seem to operate at the national level. In addition, institutional capacity (strong/weak) and political will (present/absent) are distinct phenomena whose pairing leads to four outcomes, not a dichotomy; this conflation reappears in the subnational analysis, in which Michel seems to assume that when the alleged perpetrator is a state agent, a lack of political will causes impunity (p. 5). Also, although the existence of the right to private prosecution does not vary—it is included in the Criminal Procedure Code of all three countries under study (p. 11)—allowing it to do so could have aided in discerning the effect of the right.

With regard to Michel’s core national-level findings, she observes that, in all three countries, private prosecutors litigate to hold public prosecutors accountable, with the most important effects at the investigation stage (pp. 14–16). Using a logic of necessity/sufficiency, Michel argues that certain conditions must hold for this outcome to obtain. The right to public prosecution must form part of the domestic legal opportunity structure (and the more permissive the right, the greater its potential impact). Yet as Michel highlights, political context also matters. The political opportunity structure and the state’s capacity and willingness to combat impunity are key factors. Further, echoing an argument Charles Epp (The Rights Revolution, 1998) has made about the upholding of rights in other contexts, the existence and strength of “support structures”—resources to overcome barriers to litigation and, in particular, NGOs’ willingness to engage in prosecution—also affect the results of private prosecution. Finally, victims need to be aware of their rights, feel secure pursuing them, and be able to frame matters in rights terms (pp. 24–28). Under these conditions, as well as additional factors highlighted in each empirical chapter, Michel argues that the right to private prosecution offers victims a powerful tool to enhance state responsiveness and accountability (p. 8).

The book begins with an overview (the introduction) that Michel might have used to better situate the work in the (admittedly scant) literature on the access to justice and litigation. Chapter 1 examines the role private prosecution plays as an accountability tool, and chapter 2 traces the right’s diffusion across the Latin American region. Chapters 3–5 offer empirical, chronological analyses of the evolution of private prosecution in Guatemala, Chile, and Mexico, respectively; this organization makes more difficult the systematic cross-national comparison that is at least one goal of the book. The book’s very brief conclusion is followed by a series of appendices and a useful glossary.

As Michel rightly notes, this terrific book breaks new ground by investigating, highlighting, and elevating exceptions to the “typical” situation of impunity—one that both reflects and exacerbates inequality, ineffective democratic institutions, and a weak rule of law. At the heart of her analysis are critical questions of citizenship and inclusion: providing citizens with tools to challenge prosecutorial discretion increases their ability to access justice and escape what Guillermo O’Donnell (On the State: Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems, 1993) has so evocatively referred to as “low-intensity citizenship.” The examples that Michel highlights are critically important in demonstrating that, in the face of prosecutorial failure, “revictimization” (i.e., citizens suffering from impunity as well as from crime; pp. 2, 42) is not inevitable. In the majority of Latin American countries, exercising their right to private prosecution inserts victims as empowered actors into a process that usually does not include them. Importantly, in exercising that right, citizens are rejecting extra-institutional options and instead using the very institutional structures that failed them in order to challenge the state—relegitimizing, validating, and strengthening it in the process (p. 17). The book thus illuminates the conditions under which institutional failure can lead to institutional fortification, and in particular how marginalized citizens—unexpected protagonists—can contribute to that outcome.