Joint entitlements have bred constant controversy and recurrent rejection within the Anglo-American philosophical or politically scientific universe and its Continental European counterpart. They will occupy the present discussion. It will painstakingly parse the Northern Atlantic disputation around them, together with the definitional and practical conundrums chalked up to them, and cautiously ride to their rescue.

Finding inspiration in the writings of Immanuel Kant, countless contemporary philosophies have conceived of rights as apolitical. In other words, they have sought to demonstrate that such entitlements do not belong in the realm of politics. As depicted, the rebels’ assertion impinges upon this well-entrenched view.

At the outset, this Chapter will show that officials from the United States resolve the most important insular matters not solely undemocratically but especially taking U.S. interests into account. It will affirm that they may have thus contributed to the territorial socio-economic ails, which have, in turn, fueled the current debt debacle. From this perspective, the United States should strive to democratize the dependency. It may advance such democratization outside rather than inside the Union in light of Congressional or on-site opposition to the latter option.

The cogitation will contemplate and ultimately reject the contention that the ex-isting arrangement violates individual civil rights or that Puerto Rico must become a state in order to vindicate them. It will stress that no such violation transpires since the treatment of Puerto Ricans does not differ from that of their fellow U.S. citizens. Specifically, anyone bearing the citizenship of the United States can exercise all the guaranties in question if she resides on the mainland (or Hawaii) yet not on the island (or any other territory, or abroad).

The discussion will then establish that the extant regime encroaches not upon the islanders’ personal entitlements but instead upon their collective self-determination. Ergo, vindication may consist in permitting the island to rule itself just as much as in admitting it into the federation. From this standpoint, the U.S. political establish-ment could simply amend the 1950 statute presently in force and pursue more suc-cessfully the same goal: namely, granting the dependency “self-governance” as an “as-sociated free state.” Within this wide framework, the association could flexibly develop over time toward either more or less cooperation between the parties.

In tune, countries must habitually effectuate the right to health through policy. Palpably, they may expect extensive breathing-room in their exertions. Once again, one might reprimand them if they proceed arbitrarily or bail out flagrantly.

As argued afterward, the concerned communal unit might come to regret not its endorsement of the prevailing precept but its neglect of the alternative. It might have to make amends to the persons disappointed in the process. Hence, irreducibly dilemmatic crises, which Bernard Williams dissects in the context of morality, might crop up with identical force in politics.

Nations in Latin America, not unlike many elsewhere, might compel a commentator to a combined consideration of their international and national guaranties. They have joined numerous treaties, which the third sector has been increasingly invoking at home and abroad, as precedingly betokened. Beyond the combination of the two inaugural categories, a symbiosis between them seems to have consolidated. It might intensify across the globe and perhaps even reach the United States, where isolationism in this and other realms might eventually lose its lure.

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.