Critical Theory as a decolonizing tool of human rights in Latin America

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to expose the viability of the Critical Theory as a doctrinal tool that deconceptualizes human rights from Our America, so that it is feasible to evidence the insufficiency of human rights conceived only with a European and business root and the affectation that it brings with it in communities that are disparate in their praxis to a hegemonic vision, such as the indigenous peoples; groups that abound in diversity within our Latin American territory. This theory is a fundamental tool to support the notion of contextualized human rights, permeating in them the Latin American reality and the characteristic needs of such plurality in human rights. Questioning the epistemological bases that produce legal science is, by far, the duty of a critical theory or a legal critique, in addition to exposing the obligation of the epistemological break from the social analysis of time, geographic space, political ideology, social uprisings, etc., allowing the construction of law to be based on social needs, contrary to a business and individualistic notion of Western-style human rights that does not understand the Latin American social dynamics and depersonalizes an entire region. An alternative approach that guarantees the progressiveness of human rights is advocated