What are human rights? A proposal of otherness, legal pluralism, interculturalism and decoloniality

Abstract

This article has as its object the analysis of the actual meaning of the word “human rights”, seeking to understand it from a legal-sociological approach. This subject has long been the object of reflection. However, definitions that address it satisfactorily, consistent with social reality, are lacking. From these findings the research problem arises: “what are human rights?”. The goal is not to answer the question, but to bring reflections and concerns about the approach to what human rights are. From the dialectical method, with an exploratory and descriptive purpose and a bibliographical and documentary means, the research initially exposes the traditional notions of human rights, markedly officialist, universalist and deontological, which are contrasted by the proposal of a critical theory, with an ontological focus, which proposes a definition of human rights based on alterity, legal pluralism, interculturalism and decoloniality.

Keywords

• direitos de alteridade. outridade. direito alternativo. direito paralelo. giro descolonial.