26.09.95.IDB ORGANIZES SECOND CONFERENCE ON JUDICIAL REFORM IN LATIN AMERICA

NR-193/95                                    Daniel Drosdoff (202) 623-2407
                                                 E-Mail: danieldr@iadb.org



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           September 1995


     IDB ORGANIZES SECOND CONFERENCE ON JUDICIAL REFORM IN LATIN AMERICA  

          Discussion will focus on justice and economic growth

      The Inter-American Development Bank is organizing the Second Conference on
Justice and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held in
Montevideo, Uruguay, on Oct. 19-20 of this year.
      The conference will focus on the relation between judicial reform,
investment and economic growth.  Among the participants will be prominent
judicial authorities and economists of the Bank's member countries, as well as
business leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean.
      Uruguayan President Julio Marça Sanguinetti and IDB President Enrique V.
Iglesias will participate in the inauguration of the conference.  Panelists will
include Colombia's Justice Minister N­stor Humberto Martçnez Neira; Brazil's
Minister of Public Administration Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira; IDB researcher
Rudolf Hommes, former finance minister of Colombia; and Hernando de Soto,
director of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy.
      The Bank is aware that international capital flows and commerce are
directly related to the existence of a judicial system that is independent,
reliable, efficient and accessible.  In this context, the IDB organized the first
Conference on Justice and Development in San Jos­, Costa Rica, in February 1993,
focusing on modernization and reform of justice systems.  Since that conference,
the Bank has supported programs in several Latin American countries for judicial
modernization.
      The Montevideo conference will emphasize the economic effects of judicial
reform, and it will analyze ways in which the harmonization of modernized
judicial systems in different Latin American countries can support the process
of regional integration.
 
For more information on the Montevideo conference contact Janine Perfit of the
IDB at (202) 623-3795 or Sandra Bartels at (202) 623-2600, or may inquire by fax
at (202) 623-3029.