Abstract

GONGORA MERA, MANUEL. The Constitutionalization of International Human Rights Law and Secularization in Latin America. Rev. Derecho Estado [online]. 2022, n.52, pp.37-65.  Epub Jan 13, 2023. ISSN 0122-9893.  https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n52.02.

The article's main point is the crucial role that international human rights law (IHRL) and the constitutionalist human rights movement have played in the secularization process in Latin America. It aims to analyze how the region has maintained a convergent trajectory in its secularization process in line to its normative standards on religious matters and, based on that regional historical experience, how a transformative constitutionalism has emerged in the adjudication of conflicting cases between religious freedoms and other human rights. Despite national particularities and different implementation levels of IHRL at the domestic level, the constitutionalization of IHRL in several Latin American countries has produced a common ground based on minimum international standards. This is especially noteworthy as this convergence of rules has occurred in an adverse international context, dominated by ultra-conservative and nationalist authoritarian tendencies with setbacks that are noticeable in the intensification of religious hatred and intolerance. Considering this very dissimilar trajectory compared to the rest of the world, the article argues that Latin America should be theoretically analyzed from its own specificities, by applying an approach of entangled secularities.

Keywords : Secularization; multiple secularities; entangled secularities; block of constitutionality; religious freedom; convergence of rules; Inter-American Human Rights System.

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