Browsing by Author "Yepez, Jose"

The thesis proposes that legal techniques developed during the colonization of America in the XVI century are being applied contemporarily, especially under two regimes: human rights and global governance. Those regimes share some characteristics with the legal developments of the XVI century like establishing their basis over dogmas, being used by a “superior” civilization that owns the “truth” and is entrusted a mission - to evangelize or to develop – and that those regimes have served and are serving for colonizing projects. In the first part, the thesis describes the development of the legal arguments used with the purpose of the colonization of America. Special attention is given to the deliberations of Francisco de Vitoria, in particular his beliefs about the Indians, trade and the right to wage war. In this chapter, the most remarkable developments of Domingo de Soto and Francisco Suarez are analyzed. The second chapter focuses on describing how the Human Right regime is self-contradictory, has a western bias, and its complication and density permits the bending of its vocabularies according to particular interests; characteristics shared by the regimes created during the Spanish colonization. On this subject, the thesis proposes, beyond the peculiarities mentioned, that there are diverse resemblances between the Human Rights regime and the arguments used by the Spanish conquerors during the XVI century, being both in essence, vocabularies created by colonizers to impose their views and justify their actions The third chapter proposes that contemporary colonizers are using the regime of Global Governance for displace and weaken the authority of the State. For those purposes, in this chapter the role of the NGO´s is analyzed as well as other international structures, and finally is proposed that the standard of development is a reformulation of the XVI century standard of evangelization, creating a convenient difference between different civilizations, one superior and the other inferior. The chapter implicitly suggests also that colonization requires a reduction and displacement of the central authority, like in the Spanish conquest times, to fragment the power, allowing a level of disorder and contradiction where the colonizers could develop their projects.