Hermeneutical Violence: Human Rights, Law, and the Constitution of a Global Identity

In this paper I want to analyze the process of denationalization of the law, to show how the globalization of the law can be considered as a new form of imperial control, but this time, labeled as acting for the welfare of its victims. In the first part I will analyze the national character of the law and show how it was used as an imperialistic instrument for the benefit of the imperial powers. In the second part I will show how the discourse of human rights and its universality has been the base to deny indigenous communities their right to define their own identity and how this discourse was used to destroy the old conception of sovereignty. The globalization of human rights implies the imposition of a western conception of rights, regardless of the contextual conception of the indigenous people. The discourse of human rights is part of a hermeneutical violence.