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This paper addresses the relationship between the life of the Spanish legal philosopher, Gregorio Peces-Barba Martinez, and the development of human rights and fundamental rights in the Spanish university environment in the nineties. It is analyzed its evolution in Argentina in the same period of time. Finally, this work highlights both, the integral (and three-dimensional) bases of the thought of the Spanish teacher, and the scope they have at present and in the future of all human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish legal discussion on the rights of transgender people and the possible collision with other legally protected interests has been fuelled by the recent approval, by the Council of Ministers, of the draft Law for the real and effective equality of transgender people and for the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people. In this context, this paper sets out to find out what the legal reality of trans people is beyond our borders, specifically, within the Inter-American Human Rights System, with the main aim of finding tools and interpretative keys which, from the legislation and legal conflicts of the countries analysed, provide lessons for the Spanish legal debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the question whether the human rights could be ascribed to non human persons, and in particular, to corporations. This question is analyzed by (a) exploring the link between human rights and corporations through the freedom to conduct a business as a fundamental right, by (b) looking into the process of corporate “humanization” carried out in the courts, and by (c) explaining how ascribing human rights to non humans does not necessarily mean lessen the position of human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human dignity is a central value in all legal traditions. It also plays an essential role in the universal and regional protection of human rights. This paper recovers Kantian classic treatment of dignity and offers a contemporary reading that will help us to deal with current problems. The jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights uses the idea of human dignity to justify many of its decisions. The Latin American democracies, in spite of some fragilities inherited from their recent turbulent history, show strength and importance of dignity for guarantee of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The victim is the great one forgotten the criminal process, even if regulation exists so much national, community as international that try to endow a relevant role to the victim in the criminal process comparing her procedural laws to those of the investigated defendants, the certain thing is that they exist certain regulations that, under the premise of the protection of the rights of the defendants, produce one indirect discrimination in the victims of the crime, since it is the case of the criminal appeals against the judgments acquittals. In addition, this regulation of the recourse to criminal appeal may result in secondary victimization. In this paper, the possibility arises that the current regulation of criminal appeal in cases of gender violence is unconstitutional on grounds of discrimination, for not respecting the hierarchy of rules when contravening a special rule such as the Statute of the Victim and being contrary to international and Community legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political subject that carried out the constituent processes of Bolivia and Ecuador was not conformed by a classic labor party but by the aggregation of multiple movements or struggles of groups in situation of vulnerability. This nature of the constituent subject determined that the form of emergent social constitutionalism was not based, like the European one, on the subjectivation of labor and recognition of rights linked to work-salary, but on the visibility of social groups excluded until now and their inclusion to the citizenship. This paper explains how these two constitutional texts are rich in references and mechanisms for the recognition and guarantee of the specific rights of disadvantaged or minority groups and anti-discrimination law and where these rights do not take the form of complementary rights, as happens in European constitutionalism, but rather the form of what we will call constituent rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a work in progress, dealing with property rights regarding the human body. This paper tackles conceptions of property, and approaches the possibility of considering the human body or its parts as such. If this is indeed the case, as is suggested by some decisions of the jurisprudence of a number of different countries, we have to ask about the rights of individuals whose bodies were the origin of these properties. What exact entitlements should these people have, and what are the possible consequences of these entitlements becoming legally recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to highlight the dialectical tension between the recognition of reproductive rights as human rights and, therefore, underpinned by the principle of universality, and the progressive and growing widening of the margin of appreciation that European Court of Human Rights is recognizing to the Member States in order to allow the access to the assisted reproductive technologies. This case-law tendency to expand the space for national manoeuver seems to be consolidated after the adoption in 2013 of Protocol No. 15 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which for the first time states the jurisprudential doctrine of the margin, and after the recent ECtHR judgment of 24 January 2017 concerning the case Paradiso and Campanelli versus Italy. Contrary to this position, we advocate for the redressing of the current derivation of ECtHR jurisprudence, narrowing the national margin of appreciation in order to avoid undesirable effects such as the ambiguity and unpredictability of ECtHR case-law and reproductive elitism. From this perspective, we clearly defend a harmonization of minimum common standards for access to assisted reproduction techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the WTO legitimacy has been decisively contested by international law experts and civil society. This has been due to the lack of democratic representation in the organizations decision making process as well as to the prevalence of corporate interests embedded in the trade liberalization project over the international communitys most pressing issues. In response to this legitimacy crisis, experts on international economic law have proposed the constitutionalization of the WTO. This paper aims at discussing the three main approaches of the constitutionalization debate: (I) the institution-based approach; (ii) the rights-based approach; and (iii) that based on the Appellate Body judicial activity. However, as this paper discusses, these debates do not contemplate adequate means to overcome the democratic deficit at the WTO by ignoring. amongst other issues, the establishment of effective participation channels for non state actors within the organization, which could strengthen its legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research approach the phenomenon of forced disappearances and false positives in Colombian context. This paper then attempts to address the issue from two perspectives that eventually intertwine with each other. By one hand it is significant to establish patterns of enforced disappearance using the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, particularly in cases where Colombia is involved. By the other hand, it is useful to consider whether summary and arbitrary executions, for example, false positives, represent an isolated behavior or, conversely, identify a kind of systematicity. After that it is essential to establish if in both cases, is it possible to define some elements to identify those as crimes against humanity and more so, if they can be the result of a state policy, although not official, but recognizable trough some specific violent actions, such as the struggle with the armed conflict within a possible democratic security plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new legislation and jurisprudence appeared in the period 2007-2013 on the right of association have allowed reconfigure this fundamental right and define its roles in the Spanish constitutional system. On the basis of the dignity and the free development of the personality, this paper analyzes the status of the right of association and its ten roles since the political transition to today: it role in the constitutional value system, in the jurisprudential basis of the rights of individuals, the right of association as common regulatory of other rights (particularly, political parties, trade unions and foundations), the right of association and its instrumental function for other rights, the autonomic laws of association, and its roles in the European integration and in the institutional representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the essential task of the judiciary? It is to clarify the facts, to interpret and apply the law, to execute the penalty applying fundamental rights and to prove to everyone that they are actually doing so. Well, this paper speculates with the necessary reforms needed for the judiciary to fulfill these functions within a globalized world scenario; hence it answers questions that are currently being formulated about its effectiveness and Independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to truth, as a legal concept, has emerged in different national, regional and international settings of human rights protection. It refers to the state's obligation to provide information to the victims, their families, and the society as a whole, about the circumstances in which gross human rights violations were committed. The truth is analyzed, therefore, as the consequence of a process involving the search of justice and the issue of rulings that have a merely reparational goal. However, for the safeguard international systems, this right has not been clearly recognized, at least in a conventional manner. Its mention in these systems is limited and ambiguous. Therefore, this paper aims to study how the Human Rights Inter-American System has defined the right to truth, taking as study case the El Mozote Massacre, which took place in El Salvador in 1981. This event still today remains unpunished, leaving the Salvadorian society without justice or reparation, but fundamentally without memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]