DERECHOS Y LIBERTADES: Revista de Filosofía del Derecho y derechos humanos
Derechos y Libertades is the biannual journal published by the Instituto de derechos humanos Gregorio Peces-Barba de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. It forms part of the publications of the Institute, together with the collections Cuadernos Bartolomé de las Casas, Traducciones and Debates. Lista de evaluadores 2023/ Referees 2023 Articulos aceptados/rechazados- Acceptance/rejection of articles 2023 Ethics statement and good practice/ Declaración ética y de buenas prácticas
Instituto de Derechos Humanos Gregorio Peces-Barba
The Gregorio Peces-Barba Human Rights Institute retains copyright of the published articles, reviews and news, and it is needed to quote the origin in any partial or total reproduction. The documents include the Creative Commons 4.0 license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Derechos y Libertades does not charge any fees for receiving, processing or publishing articles submitted by authors.
The text seeks to critically analyze the use of the expression “human rights” in everyday practice. The alternatives to be followed to defend the cause and the initial objectives of human rights are questioned, in turn, due to the misuse and the few positive results achieved since its appearance.
Monográfico “Teorías críticas y derechos humanos”
Copyright (c) 2025 Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Institute
Elena Carolina Díaz Galán, La protección diplomática. El caso español
Este artículo reseña: Elena Carolina DÍAZ GALÁN, La protección diplomática. El caso español, Dykinson, Madrid, 2024, 230 pp.
The essay employs the conceptual framework of critical legal theories to highlight several key issues related to the equal legal recognition of older individuals and their rights (e.g., vulnerability, institutionalization, and ageism as a specific form of oppression), arguing for the necessity of developing a genuine critical theory of law concerning old age.
International Law against reigning irrationality
Over the past decade, human rights, activists, representatives of international organisations and scholars of International Law have warned that the international order established in the postwar period is under threat. This work deals with the claim that International Law is currently in crisis by identifying signs of its decline, such as the escalation of armed conflicts and the weakening of multilateralism, and points to the deepening of imbalances of power in the global governance system and the rise of far-right nationalism as the main factors in the current setback. Then, in acknowledgment of international law’s indispensable importance despite its constitutive faults, it looks at alternative paths for the revitalization of multilateralism, emphasizing the role of the Global South in rescuing and improving the modern international order.
Asier Martínez de Bringas, Los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Luchas por la descolonización
Este artículo reseña: Asier MARTÍNEZ de BRINGAS, Los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Luchas por la descolonización, Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2024, 335 pp.
Religious dress in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
The objective of this text is to critically analyze the jurisprudence of the ECtHR on art. 9 ECHR in relation to the use of religious clothing and symbols in order to demonstrate their erratic and incoherent nature and, in general, the many doubts suggested by the various arguments used over the years.
Fernando H. Llano Alonso, Homo Ex Machina. Ética de la inteligencia artificial y Derecho digital ante el horizonte de la singularidad tecnológica
Este artículo reseña: Fernando H. LLANO ALONSO, Homo Ex Machina. Ética de la inteligencia artificial y Derecho digital ante el horizonte de la singularidad tecnológica, Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2024, 248 pp.
Proyecto Edi-Der “Derechos humanos y desinstitucionalización: apoyos, cuidados y acogimientos inclusivos”
Critical Theory (of Law) from Latin American liberation thought
This paper makes, from an iusphilosophical point of view, a connection between some ethical, axiological and evaluative contributions of Latin American liberation thought and critical theory in general, and the critical theory of law in particular. Three blocks are presented: a) an ecumenical anthropological faith based on a criterion of production, reproduction and development of human life; b) the categorical imperative against any process of victimisation; and c) finally, the proposal to denounce and confront the idolatrous processes and fetishisation of productions that juridically appear as an ideological inversion or reversal of human rights. The objective is to provide an input and material for analysis and orientation, in order to confront the current context of globalisation in the face of the various ontological dangers that threaten Humanity and planetary Nature.
Challenges of Spanish migration policy in the 21st century
This paper carries out a critical analysis of the current immigration policy in Spain. To this end, special attention is paid to the transversal issue of compatibility between immigration legislation and international protection regulations. Next, the two major issues that pose problems before and after entry into Spanish territory are addressed, which are especially concerned with border management and integration. Specifically, the obligations established in the new instruments to ensure legal entry at European level, along with the mechanisms enabled at national level to promote integration are essential at this point. Finally, the basic concerns of the new immigration regulation that are already aligned with European guidelines will be examined. Based on this analysis of highly complex aspects, proposals are made to address the pending challenges that cannot be postponed if we want to articulate an immigration policy that respects and guarantees human rights.
Legal feminism and legal pacifism. Critical theories of law and the unconditional repudiation of war
In this essay, I would like to propose an initial reflection on the significant convergence between legal feminism and legal pacifism in the critique of war. First, I will briefly mention some considerations on legal feminism as a constitutive matrix of critical theories of law; subsequently, I will attempt to analyze the nature of legal pacifism as a critical theory of law. Then, after specifying why legal feminism and legal pacifism should be understood as “unprecedented knowledge”, I will stop, in a schematic way, to analyze their methodological, theoretical and thematic convergence.
Challenges for rethinking a critical concept of law in the 21st century
This article proposes as its main objective a reflection on the conditions of possibility of a critical conception of Law in the 21st century, recognizing the complexity and multiple interpretations that this proposition involves. Critical theory, traditionally seen as an instrument of resistance, rupture, resistance and emancipation, faces new challenges in the 21st century when applied to the institutional context of formal law, which has proven insufficient to address contemporary problems such as social inequalities, environmental crises, new forms of violence, racial discrimination, migration and neocolonialism. The central proposal of the article is to redefine critical thinking in Law, prioritizing the social, techno-communicational and ecological dimensions. The conclusion points to the need for an eco-social and counter-hegemonic civilizing project, inspired by the peripheral insurgencies of the South, which defends the urgency of life and the operationalization of a Human Right for the future.
María José Fariñas Dulce, J. Daniel Oliva Martínez, Ignacio A. Pérez Macias, Oscar Pérez de la Fuente (eds.) Retos normativos de la Inteligencia Artificial
Este artículo reseña:María José FARIÑAS DULCE, J. Daniel OLIVA MARTÍNEZ, Ignacio A. PÉREZ MACÍAS, Oscar PÉREZ DE LA FUENTE (eds.), Los retos normativos de la inteligencia artificial, Colección Gregorio Peces-Barba, Dykinson, Madrid, 2024, 281 pp.
Nota del Director [Derechos y Libertades, 2025, n. 53]
A legacy of commitment with democracy, rule of law and human rights
Guillermo Vicente y Guerrero (coord.), La libertad de expresión. Avances, límites y desafíos futuros
Este artículo reseña:Guillermo VICENTE Y GUERRERO (coord.), La libertad de expresión. Avances, límites y desafíos futuros, Colex, A Coruña, 2024, 326 pp.
A limited yet significant aspect of the discourse surrounding the status of human rights defenders pertains to the conceptual definition of the term itself. Scholars and practitioners have argued that the absence of a universally accepted definition hinders the establishment of precise and enforceable standards for their protection. This article examines some issues in this debate in the context of the European Union’s human rights policy. From a critical perspective, the debate on the incoherence of the lack of recognition of human rights defenders within the space of the European Union is problematised and a decolonial reading of the resulting double standard in European policy on human rights defenders is proposed.
The teaching of non-religious beliefs or worldviews in public schools in the English legal system
This paper studies the relatively recent phenomenon of the recognition of the teaching of non-religious beliefs or worldviews in the English education system, which has occurred in parallel to the recognition, that has also been taking place in recent decades in the legal systems of the British Isles, of the forms of marriage characteristic of these so-called belief groups or secular groups. The teaching of these worldviews has been incorporated into the English education system as part of the subject of religious education, which is compulsory in state schools, through a broad interpretation of the concept of ‘other religions’ and primarily because of the requirement to apply English law in a manner consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights, unlike in other countries such as Wales, where a separate category has been established to cover the teaching of these non-religious beliefs. This incorporation of humanism and non-religious worldviews in general into the curriculum of public schools has recently received significant judicial backing, through case law whose essential features are also studied in these pages. This paper also gives consideration to some of the consequences and derivatives that this issue presents more broadly, such as those derived from the necessary full guarantee of the principle of equality between religious and non religious beliefs, or those related to the definitional problems posed by the legal notion of religion itself or that of nonreligious worldviews.
CV de los participantes [Derechos y Libertades, 2025, n. 53]
Ethnic profiling as a practice of systemic institutional discrimination
The use of racial profiling by state security forces in the exercise of their stop and search functions is a clearly discriminatory practice that involves the attribution of behaviours, situations or criminal tendencies to certain minorities, who are phenotypically different from the social majority, on the basis of prejudice. Numerous international human rights bodies have ruled on this issue. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has had the opportunity to examine several cases on this issue, without reaching a conclusion until the Wa Baile vs. Switzerland judgment. The aim of the present text is therefore, firstly, to analyse what ethnic profiling by the police consists of and why it is a practice that should be considered as systemic racism of an institutional nature. Once this has been established, the material situation described in the judgment and the reasons that led to the condemnation will be analysed in order to critically examine whether there is a correspondence between the first part and the second part, and thus to evaluate the arguments put forward by the Strasbourg Court.
Seminario “per una critica organica del discorso razzista” a cargo del Alberto Burgio, organizado por el Instituto de derechos humanos Gregorio Peces-Barba de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2 y 3 de abril de 2025.
Human rights defenders in Inter-American case law
For several decades, various international organisations have been paying attention to the situation of human rights defenders. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has highlighted the importance of human rights defenders for democratic systems and has insisted on the duty of States to adopt protection measures in their favour. This article deals with three main aspects of this jurisprudence: 1) the definition of the category of human rights defenders; 2) the extension of the rights of this category; 3) reparations ordered in cases of violations of those rights.
Copyright (c) 2024 Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Institute
Arminda Ludmila Deveza Martins da Rocha, Liberdade de imprensa durante as ditaduras de Salazar, Franco e Vargas e seus efeitos
Este artículo reseña: Arminda Ludmila Deveza Martins da ROCHA, Liberdade de imprensa durante as ditaduras de Salazar, Franco e Vargas e seus efeitos, Autografia
Chaos and cosmos. Preliminary notes for a critique of public order
Public order is a central and complex notion. This essay tries to provide the basic elements for a general theoretical critique of such a category, that is deeply employed in political and legal thought. In such a perspective, the analysis is divided into five different parts: the ontology, the physics, the politics, the ethics, and the esthetics of public order. The working mechanisms and the presuppositions of each part are carefully scrutinised.
Nota del Director [Derechos y Libertades, 2025, n. 52]
The reflection of the Latin American thought at the international sphere
This article outlines how Latin American thought has penetrated international institutions, studying their motives and objectives, as well as their consequences from the postcolonial period to the present. The main objective of the article is to know if this influence is determined by a common desire of Latin American states to emancipate themselves from the directive imposed by Western civilisation or to integrate into it in a key of equality. This objective assumes that to achieve emancipation, it would be necessary to act under a common conception of present and future sustained by Latin American identity. To achieve the objective of the article, the studies of the most renowned Latin American internationalists in two different periods are considered, as well as the influence of Latin American diplomats in international negotiation processes. First, in the period immediately following the Latin American independence and, second, in the emergence of modern international law after the Second World War. Analyzing these times through their most important international jurists and Latin American diplomatic representatives in international institutional construction, we will know what the diverse opinions and motivations of the authors are, the importance of Latin American identity and its results from a regional point of view.
The The gender perspective in Law. Some reflections by the light of the judgment of the Inter-American Court of human rights of November 18, 2022 (Angulo Losada vs. Bolivia case)
Based on the Judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Angulo Losada vs. Bolivia, we propose a reflection on the meaning of the gender perspective in law. Although this approach is not new in the jurisprudence of the Court, we will argue that the Judgment constitutes a turning point in its consolidation within the Inter-American Human Rights System. A review of the arguments used by the Court in previous cases in which it applied the gender perspective leads to the conclusion that the main novelty lies in the reparation measures agreed upon, which seek to have not only a restitutive effect but also, and mainly, a corrective effect to remedy what is referred to as a situation of structural discrimination against women.
Benjamín Rivaya García, Los derechos humanos en el cine
Este artículo reseña: Benjamín RIVAYA GARCÍA, Los derechos humanos en el cine, Palestra Editores
To have money is to have freedom. On the bad luck of being poor and other inequalities, from Gerald A. Cohen
Gerald Cohen has made a genuinely egalitarian imprint on the debates on justice, which demands to be analysed in order to properly understand the challenges facing social justice in the world. From his critical acuity and the framework of analytical Marxism that have made him one of the most brilliant contemporary philosophers, he has defended a particular egalitarianism of luck that shields the demand to compensate for the impacts of brute luck and reinforces arguments about the reconsideration of responsibility and choice that define optional luck –at first, non-compensable–. Moreover, from the conditioning unequal in which people develop their lives and make their life choices and how these impact on how free and responsible (or not) they turn out to be. Cohen offers his proposal of equality in access to social advantages from a complex theoretical and analytical framework on incentives, market conditioning, and the consideration of expensive tastes, the impact of inequalities, and the demands of equal opportunities. Therefore, he warns that poverty implies, from his acute criticism of the contemporary political and economic system, deprivations to the way in which we exercise our freedoms