In 1996, the Guatemalan civil war ended with the signing of the Peace Accords, facilitated by the United Nations and promoted as a beacon of hope for a country with a history of conflict. Twenty years later, the new era of political protest in Guatemala is highly complex and contradictory: the persistence of colonialism, fraught indigenous-settler relations, political exclusion, corruption, criminal impunity, gendered violence, judicial procedures conducted under threat, entrenched inequality, as well as economic fragility.

Human and Environmental Justice in Guatemala examines the complexities of the quest for justice in Guatemala, and the realities of both new forms of resistance and long-standing obstacles to the rule of law in the human and environmental realms. Written by prominent scholars and activists, this book explores high-profile trials, the activities of foreign mining companies, attempts to prosecute war crimes, and cultural responses to injustice in literature, feminist performance art and the media. The challenges to human and environmental capacities for justice are constrained, or facilitated, by factors that shape culture, politics, society, and the economy. The contributors to this volume include Guatemalans such as the human rights activist Helen Mack Chang, the environmental journalist Magalí Rey Rosa, former Guatemalan Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, as well as widely published Guatemala scholars.

Stephen Henighan is the author of four books of fiction, including the novel The Places Where Names Vanish (Thistledown 1998) and the short story collection North of Tourism (Cormorant 1999), which was selected as a `What's New What's Hot` title by chapters.indigo.ca. His short fiction has been published in more than thirty journals and anthologies in Canada, Great Britain and the United States, and has been taught in university courses in Canada, the U.S. and France.

Henighan's literary journalism has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, the Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and many other publications. He has published scholarly articles on literature in major international journals such as The Modern Language Review, Comparative Literature Studies and the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies.

Lecturer in Spanish at University College, Oxford and Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, Stephen Henighan has also taught English as a Second Language in Colombia and Moldova, and Creative Writing at Concordia University, the Maritime Writers` Workshop and the University of Guelph. He currently teaches Spanish-American literature and culture in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph.

Stephen Henighan's profile page

Candace Johnson is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Guelph.

Candace Johnson's profile page