Institute of Services to the Nation

The Institute of Services to the Nation (ISN), was founded in 2000 in Guatemala. ISN committed itself to change the Civil Law tradition of Guatemala and Central America. It suggests there is a close relation between the place and function of norms in society and the traditional political and social problems that Latin America face.

ISN was founded by theologian Guillermo W. Méndez.

Objectives and beliefs

Rather than signaling the decay of current politics, ISN points to the conflict of current norms and institutions with common sense and with traditional international constitutional tradition. That leads to underscore the problem of disobedience in the Civil Law tradition as a result of two contradictory ideas of the system, antinomianism and extreme legalism.

ISN points out the disbelief and transgression by the State of its very laws since that promotes the destruction of institutions and good manners. This idea, it is said, is the fundamental outlook that shapes institutions and attitudes in Latin America. ISN focuses its attention on Common Law vis-a-vis Civil Law and the potential that this comparison has, not only to explain the pattern of current institutions and behavior, but also to show the ways in which change can be attained.

The use of law as a means of social control, in their view, meets natural resistance and disobedience. On the other hand, Law as a liberating tool to practice responsible citizenship is unknown in societies organized under a Civil Law traditionfact|date=October 2008. ISN contends that freedom of conscience, in Western political tradition, signals the immorality of any political power that, in the name of the State, undermines the inner self and the conscience of every man, subjecting him to different forms of servitude. One of those servitudes, in a Civil Law context, is living under social and political institutions that allow breaking the law as a life style.

ISN argues that this has a profound effect on social traditional morals and principles, on responsible citizenship and on economics as fundamental means to promote development. The absence of Common Law results into legal positivism which undermines personal liberties. According to ISN, the legal obligation to uphold a system that corrupts men and women undermines freedom of conscience, the very basis of Western political thought and constitutional tradition.