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This paper reviews Forrahue. Matanza de 1912, written by the Mapuche writer Bernardo Colipán and co-authored with the Forrahue indigenous community located in Southern Chile. The book is a testimonial text that acts as a legal document and seeks to restore the truth in the context of Chile's historical account and collective memory. This text includes diagrams, photos and fragments in various types of handwriting, which we consider relevant in the reading and interpretation of this cultural artifact. From a symbolic perspective, the book is the place where the unburied bodies rest, allowing both the Chilean and Mapuche communities to mourn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina is the most sued country in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and one of the most Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) signed (58 in total, 55 into force). Most of these lawsuits were filed by transnational corporations (TNCs) by the 2001-2002 crisis and linked to economic sectors related to natural resources. 20% of these claims are related to the drinking water and sanitation, which also makes Argentina in the country that has received claims in ICSID this sector. These are cases of social conflict and where the role of the state is evident as a regulator against the claim of protection of private property by TNCs, which highlights a legal asymmetry that favors the protection of investments on the protection of rights humans, particularly the human right to water recognized by the UN in 2010. Taking the Argentine case as a witness, this paper will present an asymmetry that violates the most basic foundations of international law, highlighting the need to revise the international investment protection regime and its relevance to the human rights obligations erga omnes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argentina is the most sued country in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and one of the most Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) signed (58 in total, 55 into force). Most of these lawsuits were filed by transnational corporations (TNCs) by the 2001-2002 crisis and linked to economic sectors related to natural resources. 20% of these claims are related to the drinking water and sanitation, which also makes Argentina in the country that has received claims in ICSID this sector. These are cases of social conflict and where the role of the state is evident as a regulator against the claim of protection of private property by TNCs, which highlights a legal asymmetry that favors the protection of investments on the protection of rights humans, particularly the human right to water recognized by the UN in 2010. Taking the Argentine case as a witness, this paper will present an asymmetry that violates the most basic foundations of international law, highlighting the need to revise the international investment protection regime and its relevance to the human rights obligations erga omnes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the foundations of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism and the main criticisms to this doctrine, especially those which deem it incompatible with unconditional respect of human rights. Bentham's Panopticon, his proposal on prison reform published in the late eighteenth century, is discussed. Based on the analysis of the Panopticon -which is a consistent application of Bentham utilitarianism-, the author concludes that a) this doctrine promotes a humanitarian approach, although b) human rights are not guaranteed, but conditioned to the provided level of collective benefit; and c) Bentham's utilitarianism questions the universality and irrevocability of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper proposes that the Colombian Supreme Court's doctrine of liability for dangerous activities provides a useful framework to establish the nexus between juridical persons and human rights violations in the country. This article, based on an analysis of international and national law and doctrine on the subject, establishes that the absence of criminal liability of juridical persons in Colombia is a major obstacle to determining the contribution of these corporate structures to the Colombian armed conflict. This paper therefore explores other legal avenues to redress the human rights harms caused by legal persons, like liability for dangerous activities, that do not entail structural legal reforms but using existing institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the scope of overlapping jurisdiction and divergent interpretations between the European Court of Justice (ECJ or Luxembourg Court) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or Strasbourg Court) on the right to private and family life as enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. First, this research focuses on the origins of the ECJ's fundamental rights case law and the further developments introduced by the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. Then, this paper studies the conflicts between the Luxembourg and Strasbourg Courts case law regarding the interpretation of the right to private and family life as applicable to business premises and legal persons. Finally, this research analyzes whether the potentially binding effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the future European Union's accession to the ECHR would contribute to achieving the necessary coherence between the European Convention and Community law. It is concluded that accession to the ECHR is necessary for achieving that goal, since it would contribute to avoiding different interpretations of the European Convention's rights by the ECJ and to enlarge its jurisdiction in every case where those rights are affected by Community measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the incidence of the Constitution and international treaties for the effective protection of human rights in Mexico, after the constitutional reform of June 10th 2011 and the paradigmatic sentence of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation within the file varios ('various') 912/2010. With these changes, international criteria become an interpretive parameter that end the sole and final interpretation of human rights. Based on an epistemological approach, the Mexican constitutional openness to the international protection of human rights builds an external control and a double guarantee for such rights, which extends beyond reductionist or unilateral criteria from the exclusive will of the State; that is to say, there is a reciprocal dialogue between domestic and international judicial bodies that seeks to overcome the protectionist monopoly in relation to human rights in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper entails an approach to the situation of the legal recognition of minorities in Europe, taking into account the legal structures that emerged after the Second World War. It reviews the development of this subject in the European system of human rights, focusing in particular on the European Court of Human Rights as well as on the activities of other European organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper partly explores the debates on men's natural rights which took place in the public sphere in mid-nineteenth century Latin America. In Colombia, as in many other countries in the region, such debates were related to civil wars between liberals and conservatives which started around the year 1848. Romantic poet Julio Arboleda Pombo (1817-1862), military chief and catholic thinker, was a central figure of such doctrinal debates and of such civil wars. In his poetic and journalistic works it is possible to trace the emergence of a post-republican conservatism that would gravitate over the public sphere and academia in Nueva Granada, during the second half of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to explore the relation between foreign investment and forced Migration in the context of Colombian armed conflict. Through the illustration of recent cases, it shows the various forms in which the operation of multinational corporations has generated adverse effects to the vulnerable communities located at their area of influence, thus generating processes of involuntary human mobility. In that way, it is established that there is a symbiotic relation between conflict and development, affecting the structure and scope of the norms for both the protection of forced migrants and accountability for human rights violations. This is so because there is an economic interest that constrains the recognition of the above-mentioned cases under such legal sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental degradation and the effects of climate change have direct and indirect impacts on the effective enjoyment of human rights. Countries where the effects of environmental change and degradation occur are mostly likely to be vulnerable to human displacement, due to the lack of available adaptation resources, poor human resource implementation capacity and often a deficient human rights protection record. Such countries are also the ones least likely to proactively lobby governments at the national and international levels. While the exact number of people displaced is hard to estimate predictions are of approximately 150 million of environmentally displaced persons by 2050. This analysis starts by portraying the human impacts of environmental change, and then concentrates on the home states obligations under international human rights standards in parallel scrutiny with regional and international jurisprudence. The aim is to establish which duties home states have with regards to respecting human rights and ensuring a healthy and safe environment by avoiding environmental degradation. A further aim is to establish how states duties are transferable in the environmental change context; in particular, what protecting obligations states have towards environmentally displaced persons. This paper explores the duty of states to protect environmentally displaced people through a "dynamic model of internalisation of protection obligations": respecting and fulfilling people's needs in an interactive, international assistance, cooperative and participatory process. Ultimately, the global polity of states must find ways to deal with new legislative challenges in this current world of permanent emergencies of natural and human made environmental degradation and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays and concretely after the end of Cold War, it is quite visible that the activity of the Security Council is showing a variation to the traditional conception of the international system, as the increase of actions starting from the invocation of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United nations was accompanied by new controversial outcomes. This paper intends to describe several legal issues related to the imposition of economic sanctions by the Security Council, in order to show that even if it appears that such organ of the United Nations has a wide margin of appreciation when maintaining international peace and security, there are some limits arisen from the Charter of the United Nations -assumed here as a constitutional device-, but also from other branches of International Law, conceived nowadays as relevant for the protection of individuals from the adverse effects of these measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the interdependence and indivisibility of the human rights, human development and human security agendas. The United Nations, particularly the Secretary General and the United Nations Development Programme, have embraced this approach because of its potential to address structural problems, to secure coherence in all of the activities of the organization and fulfil the principles of the Charter. This library based paper reviews the application of this ‘approach to human well-being' to the IDPs in Colombia, and will contend that, although this all encompassing approach to human protection has an impact on the possibility of enhancing the capacity of these discourses of addressing human well-being, there are risks which need to be highlighted in order to guarantee that the emancipatory character of human rights will not be co-opted or instrumentalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my paper I offer an integrated interpretation of the textual meaning that the term "dignity" has within Kant's Practical Philosophy. My claim is that Kant's notion of dignity is, in fact, a socio-political and legal notion. This meaning refers to the idea of an office, a rank and, particularly, a legal title of nobility or honor. My article is presented in three steps. First, I present the notion of human dignity as it has been developed by the human rights' discourse. Second, I expound the notion of dignity as it is presented in Kant's practical philosophy. I will mainly analyze the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of the Practical Reason and the Metaphysics of Morals, both the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue. Finally, I will draw some conclusions from all of the above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an analytical reflection on key issues and opportunities that may arise for women with lower incomes or marginal communities in Colombia, from the delivery of UN A/64/L.63/Rev.1, July 26, 2010 by which the UN, "declares the right to drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights". We intended to highlight the main aspects linking gender relations with potable water service and how the resolution in question, can generate a significant change in the conditions of life and identity of women against the use and supply at domestic drinking water. This work begins with an exhibition of landscape water in some marginal regions of the world, based on figures from official regulatory bodies and / or guiding the water issue, we raised the right to water as a human right since the analysis of the various directives that regard have emanated from various international bodies, and then present the role of women in relation to the issue of water supply and finally conclude with some reflections aimed at redirecting public policies surrounding this right and duty from women and for the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Argentine prison system shows a significant deterioration, overcrowding and lack of government intervention, in a context of institutional, social and economic difficulties. Such conditions are ripe for conflict, as occurred in the province of Mendoza in March 2000, the motín vendimial. Taking as a reference point such disturbance, this paper analyzes the current situation of the prison system in Mendoza, specifically, the living conditions in prisons, the various parties involved and finally discusses alternative proposals for prison systems. Apparently, the riots are not only a manifestation of violence and revenge between them internally but also a way of claims due to living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American mass media are going beyond the mere production of information to become agents of social projects from a corporate and socially responsible framework in alliance with external players, particularly civil society organizations (cso). This paper puts forward the results of research work which collects, for the first time, the experiences of some of these alliances between media and cso in Latin America and Colombia for the benefit of Democracy and Human Rights. Via interviews with some of the main players, the study identifies both challenges and lessons for future alliances in an attempt to strengthen the contribution of mass media to the development of democracy and human rights in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to contribute to understand if "the right to the truth" is per se legally binding and carries with it the correlative and autonomous obligation which if unfulfilled will create a consequence under international law or if it has no independence. The reflection is based on the evolution of the right to the truth and the consideration of the right to the truth as part of the international sources of law under the traditional, and for some, restrictive vision listed in the main sources of article 38 of the Statue of the International Court of Justice, ICJ. To obtain this outcome, previous certain introductory elements, I will try to analyze in a first part the historical origin and evolution of the right to the truth in its different dimensions and materializations so that, in a second part I can analyze its autonomous normative strength under the discussion of Soft-Law and traditional sources of international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the research project "The Effectiveness of Judicial Contempt Power in Writ of Protection Cases. A Case Study, Bogotá (2007)". Its purpose is to identify and analyze the variables that influence the effectiveness of contempt requests in terms of the satisfaction of fundamental rights. In order to do so, the research intended to have a quantitative approach with exploratory boundaries. The project examined a total of 431 files in criminal, civil, administrative, labor and family courts in Bogota in 2007. The study shows an overview of ineffectiveness of the legal instrument and the need for its reform, together with the development of new tools to promote compliance based on different theoretical perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Colombian Constitutional Court's precedent regarding the persons with disabilities' human rights has played an active role. It has widely protected and dignified them, it was also reaffirmed the privilege place given to them by the Constitution. The paper presents a general overview of persons with disabilities human rights legal protection and specifically: the Constitutional duties of the State, the disability concept, the equality, the rights to mobility, to work, to health services and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is about terrorism and the armed Colombian conflict. It also studies the international legislation which was fruit of a study on the Colombian particular situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]