Danny Marrero

The research shows how the movement of the rights of rivers has open new spaces for subjugated people in Latin America such as Afro-decendent communities, indigenous communities, or the future generations to inject radically different legal and philosophical traditions. The research explores two pioneer cases of right attributions to rivers: Comunidades Afrodescendientes del Rio Atrato v. Presidencia de la Republica de Colombia (Afro-Colombian Indigenous Communities of the Atrato river v. Presidency of the Republic of Colombia) and Las Generaciones Futuras v. Ministerio del Medio Ambiente y Desarollo Sostenible (Future Generations v. The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development). These cases show that the rights of rivers are a necessary condition for human survival.

En este artículo se exploran los fundamentos filosóficos y ecológicos de una de las sentencias más relevantes en la atribución de derechos de la naturaleza: Las generaciones futuras vs. El Ministerio del Medio Ambiente de Colombia y otros (2018). En este caso, 25 niños, niñas y jóvenes demandaron al gobierno colombiano para que tomara las medidas necesarias para frenar la deforestación en su Amazonía. Mi objetivo es evaluar los argumentos que llevaron a la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia a reconocer a la “Amazonía colombiana como entidad, ‘sujeto de derechos’, titular de la protección, de la conservación, mantenimiento y restauración a cargo del Estado y las entidades territoriales que la integran”. En la primera parte, adoptando el punto de vista interno de los jóvenes litigantes, se reconstruirá el contexto general en el que surgió este caso. En la segunda, se explicará por qué estos jóvenes litigantes se identifican como las generaciones futuras. Finalmente, usando la estructura de los argumentos vinculados, se analizará el argumento usado por las generaciones futuras para justificar que sus derechos fundamentales deberían ser protegidos y se evaluarán las reacciones que estos argumentos tuvieron en sus destinatarios, que fueron el Tribunal Superior del Distrito Judicial de Bogotá (Sala Civil), en primera instancia, y la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia, como tribunal de revisión.

Judith Butler’s 2021 essay “Bodies That Still Matter” offers a compressed rehearsal of themes and moves that are developed in more detail in their 2020 book, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind. In both projects, Butler spotlights the term feminicidio as an instructive indicator of brutality and violence against feminized individuals, including trans women. Feminicidio exemplifies the violence of “unequal grievability” that Butler’s recent work seeks to overcome; therefore, in particular relation to their recent work on nonviolence, Butler insists that the horror of feminicidio should be closely linked to analysis that mobilizes against the full social force of the crimes. Following the work of Montserrat Sagot, Butler calls for analysis that links the brutality of the killings with a structure of social domination and terror. Additionally, Butler introduces questions for further exploration about representation, social organization, and the relation of sexual terror to domination, extermination, or a general theory of sexuality and violence. In this article, I make a start on the set of questions that come along with the term feminicidio in the work of some of its key theorists such as Diana Russell, Marcela Lagarde, Monserrat Sagot, and Alicia Schmidt Camacho. Here, in support of Butler’s claim that feminicidio should be analyzed in ways that mobilize comprehensive resistance, this article (1) defends Lagarde’s definition of feminicidio as an institutionalized crime, especially against Russell’s objection; (2) develops Sagot’s analysis of femicide in relation to Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, (3) considers Schmidt Camacho’s critique of the term in the context of maquiladora labor in Mexico, and (4) excavates the salience of Foucault’s concept of biopower as an important model for Butler’s analysis. Finally, this article (5) argues that Butler’s work challenges nonviolence researchers to expand their interest and understanding of grieving as a form of resistance.

In this paper I propose a method to solve controversies in scenarios of legal pluralism. Shortly, in scenarios of legal pluralism some of the controversies involve members of culturally differentiated groups who justify their allegations with arguments that only make sense in the culture to which they belong. If the adjudicator does not share the same cultural worldview as the parts under litigation, how can he/she come to make a decision determining the parties’ rights and obligations? My answer for this question includes (1) an account of knowledge to culturally differentiated groups, and (2) a method for the evaluation of the culturally-dependent arguments.

Scanlon (2008) has argued that his theory of permissibility (STP) has more explanatory power than the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). I believe this claim is wrong. Borrowing Michael Walzer’s method of inquiry, I will evaluate the explanatory virtue of these accounts by their understanding of actual moral intuitions originated in historical cases. Practically, I will evaluate these accounts as they explain cases of hostage crises. The main question in this context is: is it permissible that nation-states act with military force in order to liberate hostages, even if those actions put the lives of the hostages at risk? The first part of this paper has an operative reconstruction of the relevant theories. In the second section, two cases of hostage crises will be considered: the Moscow theater hostage crisis of 2002, and the Jaque Operation, which occurred in Colombia in 2008. Additionally, it will be shown that DDE explains these cases better than STP. Finally, this paper offers a critical analysis of Scanlon’s account of the explanatory power of both STP and DDE

The rhetorical view suggests that the goal of factual ar- gumentation in legal proceedings is to persuade the fact-finder about the facts under litigation. However, R does not capture our social expecta- tions: we want fact-finders to know the facts justifying their decisions, and persuasion does not necessarily lead to knowledge. I want to present an epistemic theory of argumenta- tion honoring our expectations. Un- der my account, factual argumenta- tion aims to transmit knowledge to the fact-finder.