A integração sul-americana através dos direitos humanos: a corte interamericana de direitos humanos como paradigma interpretativo regional

Abstract

The regional integration processes in South America reflect the globalized world´s need to reduce borders and adapt to this new conformation to solve the new demands that arises. However, it remains an unchangeable need to obey human rights, as these are amplified in new dimensions with the increase of the interstate relations. The amount of respect a State has for human rights will be the parameter for evaluating its level of development. The limitation of State power must co-exist with new questions that surface with the revelation of human rights as a transnational objective. There is an unbreakable relation between regional integration and exercising human rights, and only by starting from this premise it will be possible to have success in a project of integration in South America. Ultimatly, integration has to follow certain common observable standards for individual rights of the involved nations. By all the integration models that currently existed in South America, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUL), by gathering all the twelve countries of the region in one and in theory have more humanistic goals than its predecessors, shows potential to last. On their side, the Organization of American States has created the Inter-American System of Human Rights, that is a normative and jurisdictional pillar for International Law of Human Rights in the continent. Through bibliographic and field research in the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, both located in the capital of Costa Rica, this dissertation supports that it is imperative to the success of the South American process of integration to adopt the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as an interpretative regional paradigm. In this way it will be possible to align the policies of integration in South America, creating one common voice with its own proper political and social weight, without abandoning the necessity of reaffirming the universalism of human rights in international relations. If the current models of regional integration, among them the recently formed UNASUL, use this mechanism suggested in the present study, the reflexes of this attitude will be shown in other areas of social and economic interaction, contributing to increased regional harmony.