Beyond generally reflecting on the core concept that titles this Chapter, the succeeding sections will study in turn the rights to a hearing in Mexico and to an ample defense, coupled with a cross-examination, in Brazil. They will do so not in the abstract but rather by evaluating how these entitlements play out concretely and by pinpointing a prominent and possibly pivotal lawsuit. The discussion will employ common-law-style names to denote the focal opinion in each instance: (1) Melgar Castillejos v. President of the Republic and (2) Villarinho v. Brazilian Union of Composers.

In the Mexican controversy, the federal judges at all levels aggressively developed due process in a manner that parallels major developments north of the border. Remarkably, they applied it, beyond its original criminal realm of application, to the subsequently salient sphere of civil and pretrial adjudication. In the second dispute, their colleagues from Brazil transported the guaranty to a terrain thus far unknown or in fact off-limits in the United States: that of the purely private sector. In all, these precedents seem to signal that the time might have arrived for the direction of transcontinental influences to shift northward, at least occasionally.

On first impression, the dissenters within the Organization of American States seemed to be clamoring for traditional sovereignty or noninterference. They appeared to be averring that they could sovereignly rule over their territory without outside interference and to be ultimately denying the legitimacy of universal human rights. From this perspective, any internationally imagined community would have no business second-guessing how its members treat their subjects.

So-called diffuse-rights actions, which resemble those under civilly procedural Rule 23(b)(2) or citizen suits in the United States, seem to have developed dramatically in Latin America over the last three decades. They usually entitle anyone to represent the polis as a whole or a specific subgroup, without forcing her to attest an individualized injury. She may press for equitable or often reparative relief to substantiate societal safeguards, like those in favor of the ecology or precious monuments. The almost universally exercisable unconstitutionality-complaint provides a special case in point. Apparently unprecedented north of the border and having outdistanced its forebears on the European Continent, it alternatively empowers her to actualize the polity’s commitment to legislators’ or administrators’ adherence to constitutionalized constraints. She may have unconstitutional norms invalidated as such before their application. Independently of the entitlement effectuated or the remedy requested across the board, the dispositional outcome normally hinders everyone else from attempting anew. Essentially, it extinguishes her priorly available license to litigate.

During the continent’s colonization, the monarchical mandate directed specifical-ly for the colonies seemingly strove to safeguard the natives and to shield them from exploitation. It purported to conserve their customs, traditions, or institutions, pro-vided that they accepted the empire’s sovereignty and religion. Apparently, this well-intentioned disposition mostly came to naught. The imperial emissaries inexorably devastated countless cultures and civilizations.

Ostensibly, the winds of independence brought with them a dissimilar, liberal approach to aboriginal affairs. They carried it to constitutional, statutory, and regu-latory standards. It amounted to granting the victimized collectivity’s members civil and political liberty equivalent to that of their fellow citizens. Reflecting France’s rev-olutionary ideology, the fresh regimen welcomed each one of them individually into the republic yet none of their respective subgroups.

Worldwide, a clamor against the underlying proceduralist paradigm seems to have resounded relatively recently. Partly, it may have cropped up internally as a re-sult of the politicized and militarized mobilization of native communities along Mexi-can, Ecuadorian, or Bolivian latitudes and beyond. However, transnational factors, like the advent of a third generation of collective entitlements for minorities in the context of the human-rights revolution, may have played a role too.

Doubtless, someone might contrariwise reject the rightful commitments under the microscope. She might cynically view them as an adaptable tool to criticize one’s enemies. Or, as a rigid Marxist, her rejection of them might rather rest on their service as an instrument of mystification. She might deplore their supposed utilization to distract the proletariat from the combat for communism.

Incidentally, this last word’s adjectival correlate features as synonyms “adjective” or “formal,” with pertinent Latin roots. The adjective (adiectum) does not solely subserviently describe but especially adds to or completes the substantive. The form (forma), in turn, does not entail superficiality. Instead, it constitutes the “shape” or “beauty” of the content.

In contrast to their fellow Iberian Americans, Brazilians benefit from a writ of (1) security, not (2) protection. The former of these developed partly under the influence of—and therefore resembles considerably—the latter, particularly the Mexican version. Both involve a special, prompt proceeding to effectuate fundamental entitlements.

Thinking about negative and positive rights as embedded in real-life litigation will hopefully bolster one’s understanding of not solely the interplay of their purely preceptive and their political components, but especially the point to which adjudicators should yield to administrators. At this junction, the investigation will traverse eight causes and construe four of them as decided on a pure precept crying for rigorous adherence and another tetrad of them as turning on policy, on which the processed leadership deserved a decent degree of wiggle room. Each of these two foursomes will include a couple of controversies (national and supranational, respectively) involving expressive liberties and a parallel pair on sanitary guaranties.

(1) By virtue of its unconventionality, this conclusion might recall the introduction. It will not systematically summarize arguments or findings either. In a comparable vein, various roughly random reflections will follow. They will similarly derive from the exploration that unfolded in the main piece but will dissimilarly open, not close, by explaining briefly how the different components of the book hang together.

While women may have partly profited from the relatively recent rights-revolution in Latin America, the pregnant sisters among them have seemingly had to sit in the back of the bus or stay off altogether. Even modest progress on abortion entitlements has ostensibly come at a high price and slow pace, perchance thanks to the opposition of an alliance of age-old and up-and-coming religious congregations. On a positive note, though, the struggle for emancipation on this front seems to be moving forward.

Alternatively, the Bolivarian Axis might have been expressing disapproval of the decision-making by the triers. It might have felt that they recurrently erred in approaching the conflicts before them. Its champions might have been rallying particularly and principally against these errors.

As already announced, Jürgen Habermas bends over backward to dispel the suspicion that democracy and human rights may clash. He actually avers that they presuppose and bolster one another. In his estimation, all precepts of politics must similarly cohere.

dated conception of international law that refuses to die lies at the heart of today’s global refugee crisis. It posits states as sovereignly impervious and self-contained units and as the only apposite actors on the world stage. Efforts to incentivize countries generally to welcome more people seeking refuge and specifically to adopt fair standards of entry crash against this still entrenched outlook. Activists and practitioners must simultaneously debunk the prevailing standpoint and, against all odds, construct an alternative. The latter desperately needs definition and elaboration. As a whole, it must re-imagine the planet as inclusive of the traditionally excluded: such as nongovernmental organizations; non-organized groups; societal communities; persons of all races, ethnicities, genders, and religions; animals; plants; minerals; and so forth. As a most elemental part of this narrative, self-determining and solely partially sovereign nations may neither do as they please within or at their borders nor expect to be left alone in so doing. Instead, they must honor their responsibilities to a wide array of private and public parties, both at home and abroad, while acting autonomously and resisting heteronomy or domination.

This part has consecutively construed and assessed the referenced rebel’s objections to the Inter-American System. First, it has read them as primarily amounting to not a claim to sovereignty or a declaration of dissatisfaction with the institutional decision-making but a call for the politicization of human rights. This construal finds general support in the available evidence and might render the overall challenge most interesting.

Pertinently, the dissenting officials formulated their protestations mostly in Spanish, which like Portuguese boasts barely one word, “política,” to denominate concurrently politics and policy. Other Continental European languages likewise feature a single term for the twosome: exempli gratia, “politique” in French, “Politik” in German. Therefore, a speaker of any of these tongues would readily associate the two concepts. Furthermore, she would spontaneously picture the politicization of entitlements as their actualization through a series of concrete policies.